Inspirational Quotes by Roger Bannister (British Athlete, Neurologist)

Roger Bannister (1929–2018,) fully Sir Roger Gilbert Bannister, was a British athlete and neurologist. He was the first person to run a mile in under 4 minutes, a once-physiologically impossible barrier.

Born in Harrow, Middlesex, Bannister was a 25-year old medical student at Oxford when he won British (1951, 1953–54) and Empire (1954) championships in the mile run. He finally broke the four-minute barrier at Oxford’s Iffley Road track on 06-May-1954. Despite a cold crosswind and poor track conditions, he clocked a time of 3 minutes 59.4 seconds. Bannister’s record lasted just 46 days. Also in 1954, Bannister won the gold medal in the European 1500 meters event. Before long, he soon announced his retirement from competitive running to concentrate on his career as a neurologist.

After retiring from competitive athletics, Bannister wrote several papers on the physiology of exercise and neurology, heat illness, and a book, First Four Minutes (1955.) He was a distinguished neurologist for over twenty years and held various honorary positions. He was the master of Oxford’s Pembroke College 1984–93. As chair of the English Sports Council, he helped introduce sports scholarships and became one of the leading advocates in the war on drugs in sport.

Bannister’s autobiography is Twin Tracks (2015.)

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