Classic moments

[penguin]

so of the classics you don't see too often as athey arn't always televised, i ain't talking of the seniors but more of the youngsters the one's for the future , it's about time the sport started putting more athletics in genaral on the box as it will get more coverage of the sport and gain intrest in the process and stop pegleg whinging!

[ecg]

now why put athletrics on tghe tv more will it increase ratings?

are the general public really going to watch athletics now its on tv more?

is there a tv link on the iaaf website?

does lamine diack watch tv?

has running ever been televised?

what are the spectators like at athletic events?

will tv turn these spectators away?

why should tv include athletics in its schedule when it is a minority sport?

should football fans care about excepting athletics?

[Max]

THE best Classic Moment ever must be David Coleman's 800 meter race description of the great Cuban
"Juantorina just opened his legs & showed his class"

Regards,

Max.

[Jon Mulkeen]

Just 10 spots to go now – things are hotting up. Any guesses as to which moments (of the ones that haven't been featured already) will figure in the top ten...??

[penguin]

now why put athletrics on tghe tv more will it increase ratings?

are the general public really going to watch athletics now its on tv more?

is there a tv link on the iaaf website?

does lamine diack watch tv?

has running ever been televised?

what are the spectators like at athletic events?

will tv turn these spectators away?

why should tv include athletics in its schedule when it is a minority sport?

should football fans care about excepting athletics?

let's go back to football when this sport was in decline mid 80's i think, there was littl eintrest on the box holligans and wot not's were a tun off for the viewers??
crowds were down so were the tv ratings!!
so the BBC started looking at differant sports for a while!! but soon as football gt it's act together everything else was pushed to the back of the queue but now we have this system called SKY and the BBC has virtually lost all it's contracts with Football, rugby, Cricket..to name but a few! wheter or not it is accepted is irrelavent the BBC and ITV are running out of sports to put on the box!!

[TomG]

I've just found the site and immediately found reference to Roger Bannister's exploits on 6th May 1954.

I'm amazed that anyone can dismiss the performance as did Daisy and Peg-Leg.

Look at the situation that evening. No one had run better than 4m 01.4, set in 1945. It was a cold, blustery evening. The track wasn't great, cinders. The field wasn't made up of top class milers. To have achieved the first sub-4 minute mile was a great achievement in the circumstances and it was a watershed. Remember the mile is about the only imperial distance still boasting a World Record status.

Landy ran a 4m 01.6 in Turku on the 31st May before breaking the WR in 3m 58.0 on 21st June. He and Bannister ran sub-4 minutes again in the Empire Games in Vancouver on 7th August, 3m 59.6 for Landy and 3m 58.8 for Bannister. They were the only sub-4 minute miles that year.

Wes Santee of the U.S.A. had also been trying to be the first. I saw Gordon Pirie beat him in the inaugural Emsley Carr Mile at the White City in 1953 or 1954.

The 4 minute mile was seen for years as the Holy Grail of Athletics. It was achieved by an Englishman on an English track on a typical English early summer evening so of course we're proud of that fact and the fact that many athletes today can beat Roger's time is just being silly. I can remember Charlie Dumas being the first man to high jump 7 foot, Parry O'Brien being the first shot putter over 60 foot and Al Oerter throwing the discus over 200 feet. All were great feats but not feats so many strived for for so many years and they have been bettered so often since also.

Long live Sir Roger and may his feat live forever in the annals of athletics. By the way the Royal Mint issued a 50 pence piece to mark the 5oth anniversary of the run.

[daisy]

I've just found the site and immediately found reference to Roger Bannister's exploits on 6th May 1954.

I'm amazed that anyone can dismiss the performance as did Daisy and Peg-Leg.

I'm not aware that I dismissed the first four minute mile. I just think the race he won against Landy at the empire games was a better achievement. This might be because i think that arbitrary landmarks are overrated.

[Alf Shrubb]

"The field wasn't made up of top class milers."

In the above "defense" of Bannister's first sub-4 race, this sentence is quite amusing. As we all know, and know well, this race was very carefully hand-picked by Bannister and his camp for his big effort. Bannister didn't want ANY competition on that day, he wanted pacesetters--which is precisely what he got. The race was a meticulously planned time trial, as carefully choreographed as any any athletic event could possibly be...

None of this is news. And none of it detracts in the slightest from the magnitude of the historical achievement.

[chris the strider]

tergat and haile at Sydney 10,000m. was on the edge of my seat...classic.

[daisy]

tergat and haile at Sydney 10,000m. was on the edge of my seat...classic.

1996 version was a great one too. Do they have these races in the movie about Geb?

[chris the strider]

Just near the end, not a great deal at all.

[james montgomery]

I've just found the site and immediately found reference to Roger Bannister's exploits on 6th May 1954.

I'm amazed that anyone can dismiss the performance as did Daisy and Peg-Leg.

I'm not aware that I dismissed the first four minute mile. I just think the race he won against Landy at the empire games was a better achievement. This might be because i think that arbitrary landmarks are overrated.

Oh, you mean like first man on the moon?

[eldrick]

I've just found the site and immediately found reference to Roger Bannister's exploits on 6th May 1954.

I'm amazed that anyone can dismiss the performance as did Daisy and Peg-Leg.

I'm not aware that I dismissed the first four minute mile. I just think the race he won against Landy at the empire games was a better achievement. This might be because i think that arbitrary landmarks are overrated.

Oh, you mean like first man on the moon?

& kindly tell us when the mile was last an olympic event ?

[daisy]

This might be because i think that arbitrary landmarks are overrated.

Oh, you mean like first man on the moon?

james you are havering. This is a terrible analogy.

Going to the moon is the equivalent of running the mile.

Breaking the four minute mile is the equivalent of breaking the arbitrary time barrier to get to the moon.

NASA today is scheduled to launch New Horizons, a plutonium-powered probe that will go up to 47,000 miles per hour during a 10-year journey to capture the first up-close images of Pluto and the Kuiper Belt. The probe will go so fast, it will get to the moon in just nine hours, a journey that took Apollo 11 three days to make in 1969.Source

So i guess in the seventies you were on the edge of your seat to see who would beat the three day trip to the moon?


At least now we know why you couldn't get anything meaningful from Smokes post.

I have re-read your very boring post three times ( a struggle!) and cannot find any linked intelligent, evidential argument. Source

eldrick is correct .

[TomG]

Now let's not get silly about this. There never has been a man on the moon, the film with Elliot Gould proved that space exploration is all done in the studio in Hollywood or somewhere. And of course the earth is flat, well sort of saucer shaped to stop the water running off. I know this because I live beside the sea and it's always rising up away from me when I look at it.

And as for the Mile being in the Olympics, what's that got to do with the price of pork bellies? Very few imperial distances have been included in the Olympics but that doesn't mean anything, we are surrounded by people who can't work out that 12 inches make a foot, three feet a yard and 1760 yards make a Mile. And now they are talking about metricating the road signs in the U.K.

As Daisy has said the Vancouver RACE was a better performance in many ways, I can remember listening to it on the wireless and cheering Roger home all the way, because it was in a RACE, as opposed to a paced record attempt. But I am so pleased and proud an Englishman did it, as I've said on a grotty English track on a grotty English early summer evening.

Hail to the King, Sir Roger Bannister!! (Trumpets please).

[daisy]

Hail to the King, Sir Roger Bannister!! (Trumpets please).

So who was the first Scot to break the four minute mile?

[TomG]

Sorry Daisy, I don't know. Certainly it wasn't during the first 5 years or so of sub4 minutes. At that point my International Athletics Annuals run out. I'm sure there's someone from Jockland who knows, but as I'm first and foremost a Londoner, then English, then British (and never European) I plead ignorance of most things north of Watford!!!!

[Jon Mulkeen]

Looks like it was either Bruce Tulloh (was he running for Scotland in 1962?) or Mike Berisford.

[james montgomery]

I've just found the site and immediately found reference to Roger Bannister's exploits on 6th May 1954.

I'm amazed that anyone can dismiss the performance as did Daisy and Peg-Leg.

I'm not aware that I dismissed the first four minute mile. I just think the race he won against Landy at the empire games was a better achievement. .

You made a generalised statement, quote" This might be because i think that arbitrary landmarks are overrated" to which I made a a perfectly reasonable comment.

Bannister mile was an historic human achievement landmark like the first man on the moon (not comparable perhaps in logistical terms but a similar human achievement "landmark" nonetheless!) and to put Banister's effort into your context, ask any person what they remember about the name Bannister and the answer would be, assuming they actually know of him, that he was the first man to break the four minute mile barrier. His win in Vancouver was of course a great achievement but I am afraid that he is principally remembered for his race in Oxford. Who can remember the names of the others who have also walked on the moon?

Your dismissal of "arbitary landmarks" is not supported by the athletics fraternity: AW carried a poll recently of the "Greatest Ever Milers" and Bannister's First 4 minutes" was voted no 1. So there you go!

[SQUACKEE]

Same runner, same time period- which of these times is faster?

A. 3:59

B. 3:58

If you answered B you get a gold star!

[pegleg]

I'm amazed that anyone can dismiss the performance as did Daisy and Peg-Leg.

Like Daisy said, I did not dismiss the performance. I just don't rate it as highly as some people do.

Look at the situation that evening. No one had run better than 4m 01.4, set in 1945.

Between '40 and '45 the record progressed by five seconds! It was pretty clear that the record was there for the taking - it was just a matter of finding the right race.

The track wasn't great, cinders.

Weren't all tracks made of cinders then?!

The field wasn't made up of top class milers.

Alf Shrubb already covered this.

To have achieved the first sub-4 minute mile was a great achievement in the circumstances and it was a watershed.

And what circumstances were those? A meticulously-planned time-trial.

Remember the mile is about the only imperial distance still boasting a World Record status.

And ever since it has been taken out of championship programmes, it has become merely a novelty event.

Landy ran a 4m 01.6 in Turku on the 31st May before breaking the WR in 3m 58.0 on 21st June. He and Bannister ran sub-4 minutes again in the Empire Games in Vancouver on 7th August, 3m 59.6 for Landy and 3m 58.8 for Bannister. They were the only sub-4 minute miles that year. Wes Santee of the U.S.A. had also been trying to be the first. I saw Gordon Pirie beat him in the inaugural Emsley Carr Mile at the White City in 1953 or 1954.

The very fact that a handful of guys started breaking the barrier within weeks (literally!) of Bannister doing so, shows that the record really could have gone to anyone at any time. To make such a song and dance of something that was GUARANTEED to happen sooner or later just seems bizarre.

It was achieved by an Englishman on an English track on a typical English early summer evening so of course we're proud of that fact.

Would you think so highly of the record if Hagg, Anderson or Landy had been the first to break the 4-minute barrier? And surely AW shouldn't lose sight of the fact that their countdown was to encompass the WHOLE of athletics history, WORLD-WIDE. I wonder how many Americans, Australians, Russians, Africans, Asians, etc, rank Bannister's sub-4-minute mile as the greatest moment in the history of the sport.

I can remember Charlie Dumas being the first man to high jump 7 foot, Parry O'Brien being the first shot putter over 60 foot and Al Oerter throwing the discus over 200 feet. All were great feats but not feats so many strived for for so many years

Says who?

The 10-second barrier in the 100m is just as illustrious (if not, more so) than the 4-minute mile, yet how highly does Jim Hines' feat rank among athletics fans in Britain? That's the trouble with arbitrary marks - people begin to lose perspective of just how great (or not-so-great as the case may be) the actual performances were. Give me a Beamonesque performance any day. Bannister's may be the more famous moment (no thanks to English traditionalists blowing it all out of proportion) but by no means is it the greatest or most classic.

I ask again: can anyone convincingly explain to me what was so special about breaking four minutes for the mile?

[SQUACKEE]

In the end its just a number but humans do love their numbers. Your birthday is supposed to be very special but isnt it really just another day in your life.

The year 2000 was in many people's mind the end of the world or some incredible moment in time. Its just a number and no matter how excited people got about 2000, the day after i assume there was a big letdown for many.

The number 13 is just a number folks, but many tall buildings dont have a 13th floor. This is SILLY!

[Pelle3]

The 10-second barrier in the 100m is just as illustrious (if not, more so) than the 4-minute mile, yet how highly does Jim Hines' feat rank among athletics fans in Britain?

Considering that 156 UK athletes have broken 4.00 in the mile - compared to. what, three (3) sub-10 100m athletes - no comparision which event has gotten more of the fame.

[pegleg]

The 10-second barrier in the 100m is just as illustrious (if not, more so) than the 4-minute mile, yet how highly does Jim Hines' feat rank among athletics fans in Britain?

Considering that 156 UK athletes have broken 4.00 in the mile - compared to. what, three (3) sub-10 100m athletes - no comparision which event has gotten more of the fame.

Not quite sure I get your point. Do you mean the 4-min mile has gotten more of the fame because more people have broken the barrier, or that the 10-sec 100m has got more of the fame because it is by far the tougher mark?

[Pelle3]

The question of the day.

[daisy]

I've just found the site and immediately found reference to Roger Bannister's exploits on 6th May 1954.

I'm amazed that anyone can dismiss the performance as did Daisy and Peg-Leg.

I'm not aware that I dismissed the first four minute mile. I just think the race he won against Landy at the empire games was a better achievement. .

You made a generalised statement, quote" This might be because i think that arbitrary landmarks are overrated" to which I made a a perfectly reasonable comment.

Bannister mile was an historic human achievement landmark like the first man on the moon

I prefer races over arbitrary marks. This is not a generalized statement it is a fact. This IS my preference and an explanaition for my comments.

You just go out of your way to pick fights. This theme is clear in every thread. Only those that agree with your inciteful (not a spelling mistake but a pun) comments are immune.

From now on I will ask WWJMD. I have realised that Montgomeryism is the way to go. Off with their heads.

[james montgomery]

Daisy wrote:

"From now on I will ask WWJMD. I have realised that Montgomeryism is the way to go. " [/quote]


Good, you're finally seeing some sense.

[XCrunner]

The number 13 is just a number folks, but many tall buildings dont have a 13th floor. This is SILLY!

These tall building do have a 13th floor.

[SQUACKEE]

The number 13 is just a number folks, but many tall buildings dont have a 13th floor. This is SILLY!

These tall building do have a 13th floor.

Oh my god! Your right!

Oh my god! Your wrong! see below

[Pelle3]

More on the 13:th floor found here