Track & Field: Ten Years After

Of all track's "impenetrable" barriers—every one of which has now been broken—none seemed more solid, a little over a decade ago, than the 4-min. mile. In the years between 1934 and 1942, the world's best runners could only lower the record .6 sec. (from 4 min. 6.8 sec.), and in 1945 when Sweden's Gunder Hagg ran a 4-min.-1.4-sec. mile, that seemed to be just about the ultimate of which any man was capable.

Then came Britain's Roger Bannister, a dour, monkish medical student, who attacked the 4-min. mile the way a researcher attacks...