![]() ![]() He established a laboratory at the National Hospital in 1968 to study these disorders, the only such center in Britain. ![]() Mary's Hospital in London, his primary focus was on syncope, autonomic disorders, and tilt testing. In his over 25 years of medical work, both at the National Hospital and at St. When I returned to Atlanta, I divided the cinders into multiple little bottles and gave them to some friends, who were also runners and track and field aficionados and had an appreciation for the historical significance the cinders represented. I appreciated his kind gesture and thanked him profusely. When a synthetic running track had been installed several years previously, the custodian asked if he could have the cinders from the finish line so he could give them to people like me. The custodian excused himself, went back under the stands, and returned with a little sack of cinders. ![]() I explained that I had met Sir Roger once, had remembered the day when he set the record, and just wanted to see the special place for myself. A custodian appeared from underneath the stands and asked who I was and why I was there. Only one other person was in sight, appropriately a medical student, training to get his mile time down to that magic sub-4 number. I wandered over to the famous Iffley Road track, where Bannister set the record ( Figure 3). I was too embarrassed to tell him the reason why, only that I couldn't work things out. The racially hypersensitive Atlanta Organizing Committee vetoed his addition to our medical staff. As the paperwork was progressing, he was quoted in Sports Illustrated as saying that “black athletes in general all seem to have certain anatomical advantages.” He noted a “relative lack of subcutaneous fatty insulating tissue in the skin” and “the length of the Achilles tendon” ( 2). As the chief medical officer for the games, I indicated that I could probably add him to my medical staff. Bannister was interested in attending the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. The author (left) with Sir Roger Bannister.ĭr. He added that he had gotten much faster as the years progressed, hearing his 5-year-old grandson brag to a friend that “My grandpa can run a mile in under 4 seconds.” “No, no,” he corrected her, “it was only 1 mile in less than 4 minutes.” She wasn't impressed. He was given an enthusiastic introduction before his brief speech, followed by a video of his record-breaking mile run and a recording of “God Save the Queen.” He smiled and introduced his wife, Moyra (a talented artist), indicating that she knew nothing about athletics when they were dating, only that she had heard he had run 4 miles in under a minute. He deflected praise and comments about himself and seemed vitally interested in learning all that he could about the person he was visiting with-who you were, what you did, what you knew. I was greatly impressed by his intellect. In 1995, I had the occasion to meet that former medical student, now Sir Roger Bannister, a neurologist ( Figure 2). The time is 3 … (the crowd erupted!) ( 1). I wish I could have been there that day to hear the announcer, Norris McWhirter, in typical British-controlled understatement, give the results:įirst, number 41, RG Bannister of the AAU and formerly of Exeter and Merton Colleges, with a time which is a new meeting and track record, and which, subject to ratification, will be a new English native, British National, British all-comers, European, British Empire and world record. ![]() Roger Bannister, Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year. ![]()
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