Talk:Roger Bannister
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If Roger Bannister is CBE and not KBE, how is he entitled to use "Sir" before his name? I'm pretty sure he must be KBE.
- Well I donit know if he was ever awarded the KBE, but what is certain is that he appeared in the New Years' Honours list in Jan 1975 being made a Knight Bachelor. There are no post nominal letters for this, which perhaps explains why his CBE is the only honour mentioned after his name in the article's first line. The knighthood for his sports counil work is mentioned in the article. -- Op. Deo 14:43, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
- The belief that knighthood = KBE seems to be rather common. In actual fact, KBE is a relatively rare form of knighthood and Knight Bachelor (which indeed carries no postnom letters) is by far the commonest. Roger Bannister was made CBE and then a Knight Bachelor - the two awards are completely different and one does not therefore supersede the other. -- Necrothesp 17:31, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
People are still trying to make Sir Roger a KBE. What he got in 1975 was a Knight Bachelor. His Debretts People of Today 2006 entry reads BANNISTER, Sir Roger Gilbert kt (1975), CBE (1955) . Apparently the letters kt are not normally used.-- Op. Deo 15:52, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
If Roger Bannister is CBE and not KBE, how is he entitled to use "Sir" before his name? I'm pretty sure he must be KBE.
Well I dont know if he was ever awarded the KBE, but what is certain is that he appeared in the New Years' Honours list in Jan 1975 being made a Knight Bachelor. There are no post nominal letters for this, which perhaps explains why his CBE is the only honour mentioned after his name in the article's first line. The knighthood for his sports counil work is mentioned in the article. -- Op. Deo 14:43, 30 March 2006 (UTC) The belief that knighthood = KBE seems to be rather common. In actual fact, KBE is a relatively rare form of knighthood and Knight Bachelor (which indeed carries no postnom letters) is by far the commonest. Roger Bannister was made CBE and then a Knight Bachelor - the two awards are completely different and one does not therefore supersede the other. -- Necrothesp 17:31, 30 March 2006 (UTC) People are still trying to make Sir Roger a KBE. What he got in 1975 was a Knight Bachelor. His Debretts People of Today 2006 entry reads BANNISTER, Sir Roger Gilbert kt (1975), CBE (1955) . Apparently the letters kt are not normally used.-- Op. Deo 15:52, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Roger Bannister race
I object to the use of the word "race" in the article on Mr. Bannister. While he did break the four-minute-mile at a meet, he was not in an actual race when he did it. Two of his friends set pace for the first 3 quarter mile laps, then he ran the last one alone, but it was not a race.
- I think there once was a reluctance - perhaps even an outright refusal -- of the IAAF to certify world records in middle and long-distance track events where there had been a pacesetter employed. That's not the case anymore; the Golden League employs pacesetters, which often results in considerably faster races than in the Olympics. One of the operational definitions of a pacesetter, though, is someone who sets the pace for at least half to two-thirds of the race, and then drops out. This is not the case with Chataway or Brasher -- they finished the race, and not so far behind Bannister. There was a Bislett Mile many years ago (Steve Ovett was running in it) where the designated pacemaker established a big lead (he was, of course, a pretty good miler himself) and the other big names decided not to follow him -- so he didn't drop out, and went on to win! Bannister was helped in the pacesetting by his friends (as was Michel Jazy in his 1965 world record of 3:53.6) but he still had to beat them -- that makes it a race, for my money. It wasn't a single-person time trial. 137.82.82.134 22:00, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
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- very interesting! I've had a go at working this information be into the first paragraph on Thr 4-minute-mile section PeterGrecian 14:30, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
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- More on this. I was just browsing Bannister's memoir, The Four-Minute Mile (Fiftieth Anniversary Edition, 2004) at a bookstore I frequent. In 1953 Bannister ran new British record times for the mile of 4:03.6 and 4:02.0 (this being the third-fastest mile ever run to that date). The second time of 4:02.0 was not, however, accepted as a new British record by the British Amateur Athletic Association -- not because they doubted the timing but because they did not consider it set during a legitimate competition according to the existing rules. (In this "race" Don McMillan set the pace for the first three laps and Chris Brasher jogged the first two laps, letting Bannister lap him so that he could pace-set Bannister's last lap.) So it definitely became a conscious consideration of Bannister's that a serious attempt on the four-minute mile must be made within a "legitimate competition." 137.82.82.135 20:27, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
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Just thought I'd add a note on this as I notice some more detail on this race has been added to the above comment. This was an issue for this page August 2006 - but I added considerable detail to Bannister's pre-4 minute mile career since the above comments were written (there was little or nothing on Bannister's career pre-May 1954, it was as if he materialized from the ether and ran a fast mile...), including mention of the very race referred to above. Here is what I put in for the above-mentioned record/non-record:
"On 27 June, a mile race was inserted onto the program of the Surrey Schools athletic meeting. American Bob McMillen, silver medalist in the 1500 m at the Olympics, set a strong pace with 59.6 and 1:59.7 for two laps. He gave up after 2 1/2 laps, but Chris Brasher, 11th in that same Olympic 1500 m final, took up the pace from a lap behind. At 3/4 mile, Bannister was at 3:01.8, the record - and first sub-four-minute mile - in reach. But the effort fell short with a finish in 4:02.0, a time exceeded by only Andersson and Hagg. British officials would not allow this performance to stand as a British record which, Bannister felt in retrospect, was a good decision. "My feeling as I look back is one of great relief that I did not run a four-minute mile under such artificial circumstances," he said." Canada Jack (talk) 15:57, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
- Yes. The eye (well, my eye) kind of passes over the phrase "took up the pace from a lap behind" without really considering what this means -- that Brasher deliberately jogged the first two laps so he could pace-set Bannister to Bannister's finish. Perhaps you might make this more explicit.
- Regards, 137.82.188.68 (talk) 07:42, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I see your point. I'll change that to make it more explicit that this was a very "artificial" attempt. Canada Jack (talk) 15:13, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
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- I wasn't sure if my memory was faulty, but I checked Bannister's The Four-Minute Mile (fiftieth anniversary edition) and it was indeed the Australian runner Don Macmillan (9th in the 1500 m final at the 1952 Olympics), not the U.S. runner Bob McMillen, who set the pace for the first 2 1/2 laps of Bannister's 4:02.0 mile. (Reminds me of the easy confusion between Robert C. Tucker and Robert W. Tucker -- both U.S. political scientists.) Regards, 137.82.188.68 (talk) 02:42, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Ouch! That was my mistake. I re-checked my reference - The Milers by Nelson and Quercetani - and, sure enough, I had gotten Macmillan and McMillen confused. Canada Jack (talk) 16:07, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
- I checked Bannister's book again (it's at a bookstore a block from where I live; I haven't bothered to buy it!) and Chris Brasher was not in the 1952 Olympic 1500m final -- he wasn't competing in the event. There were two other British runners who did not reach the final. Brasher did compete in the mile for the 1954 British Empire Games but he did not reach the final. Regards, 137.82.188.68 (talk) 03:42, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
[edit] The Full Form of the "Impossible" Four-Minute Mile Myth
Just for completeness, I note that the full form of the four-minute mile myth (myth in the Joseph Campbell sense, not necessarily pejorative) -- which I have seen in several books on self-help psychology -- goes something like this: the four-minute mile was once thought to be impossible, but after Bannister broke the psychological barrier "dozens" (or "a dozen") of runners went under four minutes in the next few months. The parable of the myth-story is: "if you think you can't do it, you won't" (true, as a general principle). As stated in the article an informed observer would not think that lowering the world record by another 1.4 seconds impossible given that Hagg and Andersson had already lowered the pre-WWII record by 5 seconds in a series of head to head races. The second part of the myth is not true either: Bannister and Landy were the only runners to run under four minutes in the 1954 track season (twice each), there were three more new sub-4 runners in 1955, and five more in 1956. Collectively these runners might have run a total of a few-dozen sub-4 races in the two or three years after Bannister (Landy ran a total of 6), but there was not a few-dozen different sub-4 runners. It was the widespread recognition and adoption of interval training methods that gradually resulted in more sub-4 milers, not the breaking of any "psychological barrier." (Online reference: Sub-4 Register in Date Sequence )
I personally find the refutation of this widely-repeated (and harmless, as far as I can see) myth-story a useful beginning lesson in historiography in that people have heard of it, might superficially believe it, but are not emotionally wedded to it and can see that it only takes a little effort to go behind the veneer of the myth-story with the (uncontested) historical facts. 137.82.188.68 01:51, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
- That's interesting. Thanks. May even be worth a section in about the myth in the Four-minute mile article. There is also some similar discussion on that article's talk page. -- Solipsist 10:43, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
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- I'd add that if sportswriters wanted to they could talk up the story of the 1:40 (100 seconds, a nice round number) "barrier" in the 800m race with more justice than probably ever was the case with the four-minute mile "barrier." Sebastian Coe's 1981 world record of 1:41.73 stood for 16 years and remarkably is still -- 25 years later -- tied for third best time ever in the 800m; Wilson Kipketer's world record set in 1997 is 1:41.11 -- so there has only been .6 second improvement in the 800m record in 25 years, whereas there was a 4 to 5 second improvement in the 1500m/mile record during the same period. 137.82.188.68 03:14, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
