Flat Out For Four Minutes
(By Malcolm McCausland)
Four
minutes for the mile. The words still have a ring to them. It had been an
obsession among middle-distance runners for years. The mile was first contested
seriously in the 17th Century when professionals raced for wagers. There are
stories of four minutes or faster having been run on public highways in the late
18th and early 19th Centuries.
A time of just under four and a half minutes was recorded as far back in 1861 by an Irishman named Heaviside. The 4 minutes 12.75 seconds for the distance run by an English chemist’s assistant, Walter George, in 1886 was ruled out because he had competed for money. The first official world record holder was an Irish-American, T P Conneff, who ran 4 minutes 18 seconds. In 1923 the famous Finnish athlete Paavo Nurmi ran the distance in 4 minutes 10.4 seconds. Progress was slow but steady. The New Zealander Jack Lovelock did 4.07.6 in 1933, another Englishman Sydney Wooderson 4.06.4 in 1937, the Swede Arne Andersson 4.01.6 in 1944 and in 1945 a second Swede, Gunder Haegg, lowered the record to 4.01.3, only a fraction off the target.
Roger Bannister
Barrier Broken
Finally, the barrier was broken at Oxford that windy May afternoon fifty years ago. The crowd of 1,100 had fallen silent as the six athletes stepped onto the start line. The tension was such that Brasher false-started. Then, on the second gun, they were off. The rest is history. Roger Bannister, a 25 year student doctor had done what many believed was impossible…he had run a mile in 3 minutes 59.4 seconds.
Within two years on 1 June 1956 Ireland had its first member of the sub-four club. Ronnie Delaney, a student at the famous Villanova University in Pennsylvania, had finished his examinations and was keen for a race. At the advice of his coach, Jumbo Elliott, he had flown to California to run a mile. The organisers wanted a fast race and put in two pacemakers. Delaney stayed close to the front and coming off the last bend applied the famous kick that was to take him to Olympic gold in Melbourne later in the year. At the tape he had just a tenth of a second to spare over Denmark’s 1500 metres world record-holder Gunnar Nielsen. The time of 3:59.0 made Delaney the seventh man under four! Fifty years later only 38 other Irish men have achieved the feat.
First NI Sub-Four Minute Miler
Northern Ireland’s first man under the magic mark was Derek Graham. The 9th Old Boys athlete ran 3:59.40 to finish 5th in the Commonwealth Games mile on 13 August 1966; within a week he had repeated the feat with a 3:59.26 in Cardiff. His third and final sub-four was also significant; finishing second to the legendary Kenyan Kip Keino in 3:59.2 at Paisley Park in Belfast. It was the first time a Northern Ireland athlete had broken four minutes in Northern Ireland.
Peter McColgan is the only man from the northwest counties to have achieved the feat. McColgan was only 23 when he was timed at three minutes 59.37 seconds on 18th July 1986. Naturally the Strabane still recalls the fateful night at the Alexander Stadium almost 18 years ago.
“It was just before the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh and Andy Norman had organised a fast race,” revealed McColgan who still holds the Northern Ireland steeplechase record.
“It was a windy night but the pacemakers did the job and we all got pulled under four.
“Strangely, I did not think very much of it at the time but I appreciate it now, after all it’s still a fairly exclusive club.”
McColgan went on to run in the Commonwealth Games and later in the World Championships in Japan in 1991. He now lives in Carnoustie and he and his wife Liz own a chain of fitness clubs in the north of Scotland. Both he and Liz have retired from the sport but daughter Eilish (14) won UK Reebok Challenge in her age group.
The event has seen many advances in the event in the past fifty years. On 12 August 1975 New Zealander John Walker was the first man under 3:50 when he ran 3:49.4 in Gothenburg, coincidentally exactly ten seconds faster than Bannister; Hicham El Guerrouj now holds the world mark at 3:43.13. Even a man of 41 years of age, our own Eamon Coughlan, penetrated the once seemingly impregnable barrier running 3:58.15 at the Harvard indoor track in Boston in February 1994. But none has captured the public’s imagination in the same way as Bannister’s fateful four laps of the Iffley Road in Oxford track on 6 May 1954.
Ireland's 39 four-minute
milers
Jun 1st, '56 Ronnie Delany 3:59.0 (3:57.5, '58)
Aug 3rd, '64 Basil Clifford 3:59.80
Aug 13th, '66 Derek Graham 3:59.40 (3:59.26, '66)
Jun 1st, '68 Frank Murphy 3:58.6 (3:58.1, '69)
May 12th, '73 John Hartnett 3:58.3 (3:54.7, '73)
May 10th, '75 Eamonn Coghlan 3:56.2 (3:49.78i, '83)
Aug 30th, '75 Jim McGuinness 3:59.2 (3:55.0, '77)
May 1st, '76 Niall O'Shaughnessy 3:58.1 (3:55.4i, '77)
Jun 19th, '76 Paul Lawther 3:58.49 (3:57.81, '83)
Jun 19th, '76 Jerry Kiernan 3:59.12
Apr 30th, '77 Ray Flynn 3:59.4 (3:49.77, '82)
Jun 24th, '80 David Taylor 3:59.19 (3:54.48, '83)
Jun 23rd, '81 Frank O'Mara 3:58.82 (3:51.06, '86)
Jan 22nd, '83 Marcus O'Sullivan 3:58.84i (3:50.94i, '88)
Jul 13th, '83 Tommy Moloney 3:57.70 (3:54.68, '86)
Jun 10th, '84 Steve Martin 3:56.71 (3:56.36, '86)
Jul 3rd, '84 Paul Donovan 3:55.82
Jul 9th, '85 Enda Fitzpatrick 3:56.36
Jun 14th, '86 Gerry O'Reilly 3:54.63
Jul 8th, '86 Eugene Curran 3:58.54
Jul 13th, '86 Mark Kirk 3:59.67
Jul 18th, '86 Peter McColgan 3:59.37
Jul 7th, '87 Seán O'Neill 3:58.42
Jan 31st, '88 Frank Conway 3:58.32i (3:56.78i, '89)
Feb 6th, '88 Kieran Stack 3:59.4i
Jul 5th, '88 Séamus McCann 3:59.84
May 30th, '91 Davey Wilson 3:59.9
Jul 5th, '91 Niall Bruton 3:59.23 (3:53.93, '96)
Jul 9th, '93 Mark Carroll 3:58.64 (3:50.62, '00)
Jun 25th, '94 Des English 3:58.71
Jun 25th, '94 Shane Healy 3:59.23
Sep 4th, '94 Gary Lough 3:59.48 (3:55.91, '95)
Apr 1st, '95 Ken Nason 3:58.91 (3:58.09, '95)
Sep 5th, '98 James McIlroy 3:59.48
Jun 27th, '99 James Nolan 3:56.31 (3:54.62, '03)
Aug 7th, '99 Brian Treacy 3:59.91
Apr 29th, '00 Gareth Turnbull 3:57.89 (3:57.61, '02)
Oct 29th, '00 Andrew Walker 3:58.96
Mar 2nd, '03 Alistair Cragg 3:59.94