Comments on: Vancouver History: The Miracle Mile

By: The Best of BC 150: Greatest Sport Moment » Vancouver Blog Miss 604

The Best of BC 150: Greatest Sport Moment » Vancouver Blog Miss 604 — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:15:17 +0000

[...] help you out with your answers I’ll throw a few names out there… Miracle Mile, Rick Hansen, Roger Nielson’s towel power, 1915 Stanley Cup victory… any others? [...]

By: Dale

Dale — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:16:27 +0000

CBC Ideas did an excellent program on the quest for the 4 minute mile. The program page is here: http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/features/four_minute/index.html, and has some background and an except from Bannister’s book. Sadly, the radio program isn’t available for download.

It was, apparently, fate that Bannister broke the 4-minute-mile before Landy. They were both very close and the world waited with anticipation to see who would do it first. I suspect that’s a more common story than is told or recorded in the record books. Nor how much Bannister wouldn’t have come close to the record without his coach and teammates.

I didn’t realize they raced together here after Bannister broke the record. It’s cool we have a piece of that history locally. Thanks, Rebecca.

By: Miss604

Miss604 — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:42:59 +0000

Great bit of history! Thank you for sharing, Robert.

By: Robert Finlayson

Robert Finlayson — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:17:39 +0000

John Landy was also involved in another great sporting moment in history (perhaps bigger than the sub 4 minute mile).

Before the Olympic Games in 1956 Landy raced at National Championships. During the one mile race Ron Clarke (then world junior champion) lost balance and fell. Landy stopped running and came back to Clarke to see if he was alright.

It was “a spontaneous gesture of sportsmanship and it has never been forgotten”. Incredibly, Landy went on to finish the race and won.

http://www.hyperhistory.org/index.php?option=displaypage&Itemid=713&op=page