The past week had brought only restless days and nights. He and his room-mates – sprinter Nicholas Stacey, quarter-miler Alan Dick, and three-miler Chris Chataway – had tried to relieve the constant churning of their thoughts about victory or defeat, and about what would make the difference between the two. Resting on their unkempt beds, they spoke of politics and history, read books, or joked around with one another. One evening, Stacey mounted a wooden box, as if it was an Olympic podium, to accept his imaginary gold medal and offer a congratulatory speech. At other times they discussed their competitors, particularly Zatopek, whom they thought inhuman in ability. ‘While he goes for a twenty-mile training run on his only free day,’ Chataway said, ‘we lie here panting with exhaustion, moaning that the gods are unkind to us, and that we’re too intelligent to train hard. It’s all nonsense.’ Inevitably, the four thought again and again about that second when the starting gun would fire, and whether or not they would prove good enough. Regardless of what happened, they promised one another that once the Olympics had ended they would never put themselves through this torture again.
By the morning of Saturday, 26 July, Bannister was the only one of his room-mates still tense, though he tried not to show it, as far as possible keeping to himself his doubts about being able to win the race. The others had finished their events, nobody in triumph, and Chataway most disastrously, of course, by falling on the final lap of the 5,000m final. Bannister had watched the race, and its conclusion impressed on him how important his finishing kick would be.
Absence of victory was the same story for the entire British team. Just two days of competition remained on the track and in the field and they had won only a handful of medals, not one of them gold. Nor had any British athlete won gold in any of the other events. The British reporter who had said before the Games ‘I will eat a pair of spiked shoes if our team doesn’t win twelve gold medals’ was dangerously close to having a mouthful of leather. Headlines cried out ‘Don’t Worry, We Are Still in the Fight’, yet column after column reported failure and missed chances.
There was one hope left, though: Roger Bannister. Now, more than ever, his countrymen rallied around him. A few days before, the Daily Mirror columnist Tom Phillips had compared Bannister to a great racehorse trainer who ‘rarely bothered about picking minor honours here and there. If he wished to win a classic race, he got his horse perfectly fit for that day and nearly every time his horse was first past the post.’ Phillips concluded, ‘I believe Bannister will win and teach some of our other athletes, and the officials and coaches, a lesson in strategy and tactics.’
If confidence could be drawn from the number of column inches guaranteeing his victory, Bannister was a sure thing. Most sportswriters considered him their favourite. But his legs hurt. He hadn’t slept soundly in days. He was plagued by worries, both real and otherwise. His qualifying round and semi-final in the previous two days had been brutal. To avoid the jostling and elbowing of a crowded field he’d run both races in the second and third lanes, adding at least twenty yards to each and exhausting himself even more. The semi-final had been especially taxing because there was a fight to the finish that placed him a narrow four-tenths of a second ahead of Jungwirth from Czechoslovakia, who had failed to qualify. Usually Bannister required three or four days of recovery after such a race because of his limited training regime, but now he had been given only twenty-four hours.
In his room, waiting as the minutes ticked past, Bannister knew the 1,500m final would draw the world’s attention. He knew the stands would be jammed to capacity. He knew his competitors had also trained for thousands of hours for this day, and that they would strive with every muscle and ounce of will to claim victory. It was impossible not to rehearse the coming race over and over again in his head. How quickly should he start? Should he stay on the inside lane or move to the outside? Where must he be by the third lap? How close to the finish could he start his burst?
When Bannister made his way down the tunnel underneath the stadium that afternoon, he was no less tortured. His face was blanched, his step uncertain. Australian miler Don Macmillan walked alongside him. He was in bad shape as well, dehydrated and soaked with perspiration after the voodoo warm-up imposed by his coach, yet he noticed that Bannister, against whom he had run in New Zealand in 1950, was pale and nervous.
‘Good luck, Don,’ Bannister said, heading up into the stadium.
‘Thanks, Roger,’ Macmillan choked out.
The time had come. When the Duke of Edinburgh arrived in the stands, the crowd cheered. The sun even broke through the clouds to honour this signature Olympic race. While the other athletes stretched and jogged around the infield to warm up, Bannister rested on the bench. Chris Brasher, the British steeplechaser and former president of the Cambridge University Athletic Club, watched from the stands and later described his friend’s appearance: ‘There was a peculiar loneliness about Roger. He stood apart from the others, looking drawn and white, as if he were about to go into a torture chamber.’ Chris Chataway was also in the stands. He had written to his mother the day before to tell her how concerned he was about Bannister’s state in the days before his race. As Chataway waited for the race to begin, he worried that his room-mate had already defeated himself in his mind. However, though tense and sapped of energy from two heats, Bannister still felt that he had a chance. Every race was imperfect, and he had always come through in the past.
Once Finnish middle-distance runner Denis Johansson had completed a presumptuous pre-race victory lap, the starter called the race. With the eleven others, Bannister came to the line. The crowd hushed for the gun. He had prepared his whole athletics career for this moment. Suddenly, they were off.
The German Lamers carried the field through the first lap in 57.8 seconds, looking as though he might be pacing for his countryman and the favourite to win, Werner Lueg. Throughout this first lap, Bannister stayed to the inside; he did not have the energy to battle in the middle of the pack. Lamers soon faded, and Lueg took the lead, finishing the second lap at a slower pace in 2:01.4. By this time Bannister had managed to come up through the field and was running in fifth place. At the bell, Lueg was still leading. He finished the third lap in 3:03, still on the slow side given the field’s talent. Only three-quarters of a lap to go.
In the radio broadcast booth, BBC announcer Harold Abrahams was worried for Bannister, despite the fact that he was in the right position – third – for making his break. ‘He is not running as well as one would hope,’ Abrahams said. ‘He is looking rather tired.’
In the back straight of the last lap, the race heated up. Two hundred metres from the finish and the whole field was nearly sprinting. Down the straight, Aberg of Sweden and then El Mabrouk of France tried to surge to the head of the pack. Bannister was next, deciding to strike at the same time Lovelock had in the 1936 Olympics final to win the gold.
‘Bannister is in third position with 180 metres to go. Bannister fighting magnificently. Bannister now trying to get into the lead.’
This was it, Bannister thought. Although he had suffered nothing but dread since learning of the added semi-final, he was now in the ideal spot to win the gold. He had managed the jostling field, kept with the pace, and avoiding tripping. As he moved into the final turn, now in second place, he called on the full effect of his finishing kick – his most potent weapon. He gave the order to his legs to go, but for the first time in his life his kick wasn’t there. When he should have leapt ahead, he stalled. His legs just didn’t have the energy. It was a shock. Little Josey Barthel from Luxembourg swept by him, unbelievably, impossibly. Then the American, McMillen, passed him as well. Bannister felt drained and helpless, knowing he had lost.
‘Bannister is fading!’ Abrahams called into the microphone.
Lueg held strong, stretching his lead by three yards at the end of the turn. Barthel then struck, delivering the finish Bannister wanted for his own. The Luxemburger cruised past Lueg in the final fifty metres with McMillen also coming up fast.
‘And