roger bannister

I was barely two years old when Roger Bannister ran the world's first three-minute mile: 3:59.4 on May 6, 1954, but I remember it as if I was there :)

I'm really steamed. I never made the pilgrimage to Iffley Road to run a token mile on the cinder track first laid down in 1880 and made famous by Roger Bannister's "barrier"-breaking 3:59 mile in 1954.

Too late now. The Oxford track has been resurfaced and is the focal point of a new $38 sports complex that has been officially opened by Lord Coe (aka former world record-holder and Olympic champion Seb Coe).

But here's a thought: BBC News reports that the track has "now been awarded UK Athletics certification to hold meetings and be eligible for record attempts". When I get my legs back maybe I'll make that trip with more serious intent.

The unlikely running champion who inspired Roger Bannister and many other greats, Sydney Wooderson, MBE, died over the holiday period aged 91.

Wooderson, who stood 5ft 6 and weighed under 9 stone, was born in 1914 and ran 4:30 for the mile when still a schoolboy, going on to set a world mile record of 4:6.4 in 1938, and world records at 800m and 880 yards in a career spoilt by injury and war.

Steven Downes writes in the Independent:

"If someone were to point out Sydney Wooderson to you on the running track and tell you he was the athlete who had run a mile more quickly than any other human being, you just wouldn't believe it.