TRAIL
Iconic Dream Miles
The First Sub-Four
It was widely believed to be impossible for a human to break the four-minute barrier , until British medical student Roger Bannister took to the Iffley Road track in Oxford , with friends Chris Brasher and Chris Chataway running as pacesetters , and managed the impossible , clocking 3:59.4 to run the first ever sub-four .
The Miracle Mile
At the 1954 Empire Games in Vancouver , Canada , the stage was set for a dramatic showdown between the world ’ s first two sub-four miler , Roger Bannister of England and John Landy of Australia , who had run 3:58.0 to take the World Record from Bannister earlier that year . This enthralling race is still known as “ The Miracle Mile .”
The Dream Mile
The term “ Dream Mile ” was first used in 1971 , in the build-up to the mile dual between Americans Jim Ryan and Marty Liquori in Philadelphia . Ryan , who in 1965 had become the first high school athlete to run a sub-four mile , was the favourite , but Liquori took the win in 3:54.6 , and the Dream Mile name became a global norm .
The World Record
Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco is remembered for his multiple gold medals at the Olympics , World Champs and World Indoor Champs , as well as numerous World Records , and his 3:43.13 in 1999 has stood for more than two decades . Racing in Rome , he held off Kenya ’ s Noah Ngeny in a sprint finish to win by just 0.27 seconds .
The Women ’ s Dream Mile
Records of women ’ s fastest times for the mile go as far back as 1921 , when Britain ’ s Elizabeth Atkinson clocked 6:13.2 in Manchester , but this performance , and those that followed for the next 46 years , are classified as World Bests , not World Records . This is because women ’ s records were only official recognised by the International Amateur Athletics Federation ( IAAF , later known as the International Association of Athletics Federations , now known as World Athletics ) from 1967 onwards .
With few women ’ s races in the 1920s era , Atkinson ’ s mark stood until 1932 , when Ruth Christmas ran 5:27.5 in London , and then Gladys Lunn set four more leading times from 1936 to 1937 , bringing the world best down to 5:17.0 . By the time World War Two began in 1939 , the women ’ s time was down to 5:15.3 . After the war , several more British athletes as well as Romanian Edith Treyball collectively brought the women ’ s mark down further , and on 26 May 1954 , Brit Diane Leather clocked 5:00.2 . Then on 29 May , just three days after her previous race , and 23 days after Roger Bannister ’ s famous 3:59.9 , Leather clocked 4:59.6 in Birmingham .
That really opened the floodgates , and the following years , Leather improved the women ’ s best massively , with times of 4:50.8 and 4:45.0 . By May 1967 , the women ’ s mark was down to 4:39.2 , held by Britain ’ s Anne Smith , and when she clocked 4:37.0 on 3 June 1967 , a new ear began as became the first officially recognised women ’ s World Record for the mile . Since then , the World Record has been improved 14 times , with the first sub-4:30 run by Italy ’ s Paola Pigni in 1973 , the first sub-4:20 coming in 1982 courtesy of the USA ’ s Mary Decker-Tabb , and in 1996 Svetlana Masterkova of Russia clocked 4:12.56 on 14 August 1996 , just days after winning double gold in the Atlanta Olympics in the 800m and 1500m .
The Russian ’ s record stood for nearly 23 years , until Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands finally beat that mark with a 4:12.33 in July 2019 , and that mark was then beaten by Kenyan Faith Kipyegon on 21 July 2023 , when she clocked 4:07.64 . With that , the women took a big step towards the four-minute mark , which just over 70 years ago was still considered unbreakable by men . Taking another seven seconds off the women ’ s World Record may still be a way off , but it is starting to look more and more possible .
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