four minute mile in 1770?

[jobin]

an interesting article that i found linked off of
www.letsrun.com.

http://sport.guardian.co.uk/athletics/comment/0,10083,12078-
44,00.html

excerpt
-------
The time a land forgot

Was Roger Bannister the first man to run a mile in under
four minutes or was he just the first amateur, asks one of
Britain's top sports historians.

[Topcounsel]

>Was Roger Bannister the first man to run a mile in under
>four minutes or was he just the first amateur, asks one of
>Britain's top sports historians.

Fascinating link. Very thought-provoking! Thanks for
posting it. Makes me wonder about old-time "accuracy,"
among other things.

[Donovan Rebbech]

In article <c7b9dk$5pe$1@glue.ucr.edu>, jobin@REMOVE-DEEZ-WORDS.hotmail.com.edu wrote:
>
> an interesting article that i found linked off of
> www.letsrun.com.
>
> http://sport.guardian.co.uk/athletics/comment/0,10083,120-
> 7844,00.html
>
> excerpt
> -------
> The time a land forgot
>
> Was Roger Bannister the first man to run a mile in under
> four minutes or was he just the first amateur, asks one of
> Britain's top sports historians.

Put me in the ``skeptics'' camp. I don't think it's correct
to say that the athletes of years gone by were inferior.
Noakes does a great job IMO of presenting some of the
achievements of earlier athletes.

However, unless we understand the rules and procedures that
were used in those accomplishments, it is difficult to
properly appraise them.

Regarding his complaints about Walter George, Nurmi, Hagg
and Anderson -- the achievements of these great and
influential runners are well documented and recognised. Sure
they went through adversity, and had their share of bad
luck. So did lots of people -- the great runners who were
denied olympic medals, or great American athletes who missed
races because they had a bad day at the olympic trials, etc.
Doesn't mean that they weren't great runners, but neither
does it diminish Bannisters achievement.

Cheers,
--
Donovan Rebbechi http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/

[Rick++]

I've always wondered how modern Olympians would fare against
the ancients of 2-3 millennia earlier. They didnt have
absolute timing devices then, just competed against each
other instead of a clock or ruler. Moderns have come froma
pool of billions and competed for a century. The ancients
came from just a few million and competed for 1100 years.

[jobin]

TopCounsel <topcounsel@aol.com> wrote:
> Fascinating link. Very thought-provoking! Thanks for
> posting it. Makes me wonder about old-time "accuracy,"
> among other things.

we humans are so presumptuous sometimes. :) they had some
pretty cool things back in those days.

[Anders Lustig]

Donovan Rebbechi <abuse@aol.com> wrote in message news:<slrnc9imhd.aim.abuse@panix2.panix.com>...

> Regarding his complaints about Walter George, Nurmi, Hagg
> and Anderson -- the achievements of these great and
> influential runners are well documented and recognised.
> Sure they went through adversity, and had their share of
> bad luck.

That was not the author´s point - which was that these
athletes could well have broken the four-minute barrier
before Bannister did, had the sport´s governing body not cut
their careers short.

BTW Paavo Nurmi was already past his prime on the shorter
distances and he was merely robbed of a possible or even
likely triumph on the marathon in Los Angeles. Jules
Ladoumèsgue was probably still a little bit too far from
four minutes, but Gunder Hägg and Arne Andersson were about
25-26 and especially the latter probably had his best mile
races still ahead of him.

Anders

[Donovan Rebbech]

In article <e621e2ab.0405052349.4c31b2dd@posting.google.com>, Anders Lustig wrote:
> Donovan Rebbechi <abuse@aol.com> wrote in message
> news:<slrnc9imhd.aim.abuse@panix2.panix.com>...
>
>> Regarding his complaints about Walter George, Nurmi, Hagg
>> and Anderson -- the achievements of these great and
>> influential runners are well documented and recognised.
>> Sure they went through adversity, and had their share of
>> bad luck.
>
> That was not the author´s point - which was that these
> athletes could well have broken the four-minute barrier
> before Bannister did, had the sport´s governing body not
> cut their careers short.

Lots of people could have/would have/should have broken it
given better luck. There are probably a number of unknown
Kenyan runners who could have run it had their performances
been recognised. Others like Santee could have done it given
better luck and better circumstances. But that's just tough,
luck and circumstances are part of the game.

Cheers,
--
Donovan Rebbechi http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/

[Anders Lustig]

Donovan Rebbechi <abuse@aol.com> wrote in message news:<slrnc9kau7.41g.abuse@panix2.panix.com>...

> Lots of people could have/would have/should have broken it
> given better luck.

There´s interesting speculation and there´s, well, pointless
speculation:-)

The point of the author´s speculation was that the breaking
of the barrier was not something that had became possible
only in the early 1950´s with the introduction of whatever
Bannister and his contemporaries brought into it in terms of
training etc.

I.e. that since without doubt the most talented and
dedicated athletes hadn´t reached their full potential
- which may be true or not - the development of the
mile record had stalled unnaturally (and, given a
certain number of tries, one of them "would´ve" had the
necessary amount of luck, presumably).

> There are probably a number of unknown Kenyan runners who
> could have run it had their performances been recognised.

You forget the North Africans:-) OK, had the African talent
pool been dipped, it´s entirely possible that even with the
training methods of those days the four-minute mile would´ve
seen the light of day before 1953.

(This is not entirely pointless speculation, but IMHO less
interesting than the author´s - and it´s kind of more of a
truism to state it...)

> Others like Santee could have done it given better luck
> and better circumstances. But that's just tough, luck and
> circumstances are part of the game.

Talking about truisms:-)

Santee, Landy and others are runners of the same era, and
therefore it´s not terribly important whether it was
Bannister or one of them who succeded first - but it´s not a
denial of the parts of the game, let alone an attempt to
diminish Bannister´s achievement, to speculate that, for
instance, Santee would´ve done it if the track hadn´t been
so wet or that Landy would´ve done in Australia if he, too,
would´ve had help from pacers.

And neither is it when I express the opinion that it was a
more magnificent performance when John Landy 46 days later
in Turku, Finland, led from strat to finish and ran 3.57,9!

Anders