On 80th Birthday, Sir Roger Bannister Calls for Examination of Mile World Records
“Any record not set on a blustery day should be subject to scrutiny," Sir Roger Bannister declared Monday.
In a fiercely worded statement issued on his 80th birthday, Sir Roger Bannister, who famously broke the elusive four-minute mile barrier in 1954, declared that “most, if not all” world records should be scratched from the books because they were not set on a blustery spring day on Oxford University’s cinder track. The lengthy statement by the legendary Sir Bannister is sure to ruffle feathers.
“This charade has gone on long enough!” the statement opens. “Athletes around the globe are guilty of cheating and I shall not stand for it. I hereby declare that any and all athletes who have taken advantage of modern science receive irrevocable life time bans.”
As evidence, Sir Bannister points to the “false evolution” of track and field, including Mondo track surfaces, treadmills, massage therapy and the NCAA. “When I was a schoolboy, we didn’t have any sissified liberal arts curricula! I studied medicine at Oxford – and I ran a 3:59 mile! These young men and women today, they major in Film and Video or Communications! All rubbish!”
Sir Bannister’s beliefs about the state of sport run counter to the vast scientific changes to track and field since the mid-1950’s when he was a household name throughout the world. Most elite athletes have strayed from the interval-centric training regimen that Bannister favored. In addition, most athletes train for more than 45 minutes a day and don’t eat egg salad sandwiches one hour before world record attempts. In Bannister’s view however, these changes deviate from the purity of the sport – namely, running around the cinder track at Iffley Road wearing crudely made spikes and an Oxford University singlet. “These days, any wanker can break four minutes. It takes a real man to do it with three poorly trained rabbits and a brain taxed to the brink with anatomy lectures!”
Showing he’s still in tune with the going-ons of today’s track world, the 1955 Sportsman of the Year saves particular venom for oversized indoor tracks, which he calls an “abomination to the sport.” At roughly five laps to the mile, with no weather conditions to contend with, many athletes are able to shatter their personal bests. According to Sir Bannister it is highly doubtful they could replicate those times outdoors on a cinder track on a windy day in Oxford. “Oversized tracks make me puke up my Yorkshire pudding!” exhorts Sir Bannister, who crudely referred to his testicles as the only “oversized” things necessary for a 3:59 mile.
Sir Bannister also picked apart individual runners by name, peppering his abusive missive with terms like “fairy boy” “maggot” and “sissified lilly livered girlie runner.” According to the now-famed neurologist, the only middle distance runner currently worth his salt is Andy Baddeley, a profoundly ugly British miler with a degree in aeronautical engineering. Of Baddeley, Bannister writes “Now there’s a true competitor! He may be as ugly as a tube operator, but the boy’s got heart…and brains! He embodies the true spirit and marbles of the Brits.”