The Four-Minute Mile (Masterplots II: Juvenile and Young Adult Biography Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Roger Bannister
- First Published: 1955
- Time of Work: 1942–1954
- Setting: Bath, Oxford, Chiswick, Hampstead, and Cambridge, England; Philadelphia; New York City; Morocco; Bern, Switzerland; New Zealand; Vancouver, Canada; and Helsinki, Finland
- Principal Characters: Roger Bannister, Jack Lovelock, Chris Chataway, Franz Stampfl, Chris Basher, Gunnar Hägg, Paavo Nurmi, John Landry, McDonald Bailey
- Genres: Nonfiction, Autobiography
- Subjects: 1950’s, Self-discovery, Autobiography, 1940’s, England or English people, Athletes, Sports, Running, Track athletics
- Locales: New York, NY, Philadelphia, PA, England, Vancouver, Canada, New Zealand, Morocco, Bern, Switzerland, Helsinki, Finland
Form and Content
Born in Bath, England, in 1929, Roger Bannister was a serious, but always amateur, runner for eight years. During that period, he steadily increased his speed, cutting his time for the mile run from 4.53.0 (four minutes, fifty-three seconds, no fractions) to an amazing 3.58.8 in the 1954 Commonwealth Games, making him the fastest runner in the world. From childhood, running was a joyful expression, a creative experience that eased him outside himself and tested his emotional and physiological limits. Although his running years paralleled his education and...
[The entire page is 1243 words long]
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