18

Now bid me run, and I will strive with things impossible.

—SHAKESPEARE, Julius Caesar

THE SUN ROSE over the snow-capped mountains surrounding Vancouver. The waters of Burrard Inlet lightened, and a few early-to-rise sailors pointed their boats out toward the deeper bay. Morning strollers walked along the beaches, and the towering Lion's Gate suspension bridge began to see the first cars in what would be a tough day for traffic. The flags of twenty-four competing nations from throughout the British Empire lined the streets leading to the stadium. A horseshoe-shaped wonder of steel and concrete, the stadium had been built, along with a bicycle velodrome and a swimming center, especially for the 1954 Empire Games. Inside the stadium the groundsmen raked the broad jump pit and took special care rolling the six-lane clay track. The athletes for the final day of events would soon arrive to test their spikes on it. With the forecasts predicting an afternoon of sunshine and warm temperatures, the track promised to be the perfect setting for the heralded mile race.

On newsstands from Vancouver to New York and from London to Melbourne, the race was headlined on front pages and dominated sport sections. "Landy, Bannister in Epic Clash at Games Today," read the Sun-Herald in Australia. "Mile of the Century at Vancouver Today," bannered the Daily Telegraph in England. "Landy, Bannister Primed for 'Miracle Mile,'" proclaimed the New York Herald Tribune. Hyperbole was at a premium. One newspaper predicted that the "whole athletic world will be tuned to Vancouver with eyes, ears and heart." Another expanded this audience and labeled that day's mile "the race the whole world is waiting for." Landy and Bannister were profiled and compared on every score—their birth dates, heights, weights, and fastest half-mile, mile, and two-mile times. Images of the two running were placed next to each other. Final quotes from the two were published. Landy said, "I have reached my peak." "We may get down to four minutes," Bannister offered. And last-minute predictions were made: Australian papers tipped Landy to win; British papers gave Bannister the advantage, while the American press took the middle road, simply saying that this race was the "supreme test" between the two milers.

When Landy awakened early that morning after a surprisingly restful night's sleep, his roommate Vernon, who felt nervous for his friend, asked, "How does your foot feel?" Landy replied, "Fine," but said little else. But the dressings were soaked with blood. The cut had continued to bleed through the night, and Landy knew that he needed to get it looked at again. Though his race against Bannister was only a few hours away, he returned to the university hospital. Somehow he managed to elude reporters. The same doctor from the night before told him he needed stitches, race or no race. Landy abdicated. After stitching his foot, the doctor insisted that the miler couldn't run in his condition, but the miler was determined. He was running. The doctor dressed and padded his foot, and Landy returned to have lunch with a few of his Australian teammates. Despite his foot's tenderness, he did not let it affect his gait.

When he arrived at the stadium, the stands were quickly filling to their capacity of thirty-five thousand. In the locker room nobody said anything to Landy about his cut foot, proof that the reporter O'Brien had kept his word. Twenty minutes before the race was to start Landy put on his spikes, carefully slipping on his left shoe so as not to disturb the dressings. His only choice was to believe that the cut would not bother him. If the cut had been an inch over on his heel or on the ball of his foot, he could never have raced. Before he went out onto the field to warm up, the doctor who had stitched his foot approached him, offering to give Landy a local anesthetic for the pain. Landy said he could manage without it.

All roads had led to this moment: training at Portsea with Cerutty, the lessons of Zatopek, his surprise 4:02.1 at Olympic Park, the months and months of uninterrupted training, his failure to bring his time down further in Australia, and then his triumph in Turku. But here finally was the race that mattered most. Aside from the pressure of leading from the front with Bannister and the six other runners poised behind him, just waiting to pounce, he had to deal with the hope of his teammates and millions of Australians that he would bring victory to what had otherwise been an unsuccessful Empire Games for his country. He also had to contend with the fact that every stride, move, and countermove would be watched, broadcasted, reviewed, and dissected by millions. It was difficult to handle. As the race approached, however, he concentrated solely on his game plan. He would run a moderately quick first half, followed by a very fast third lap in which he believed he could break Bannister. It wasn't a complicated strategy, but he felt that it was the only one that would work. There would be nobody more fit than him on the track, and he was tremendously motivated to win.

Before leaving for the stadium, Bannister carefully packed the same track shoes he had worn at Iffley Road on May 6. He decided to take the team bus so as not to risk an accident if he drove himself. His mind was too preoccupied. Surrounded by his teammates on the bus, he watched the crowds of people descending on the stadium, knowing they had all come to see him and Landy race. In the locker room, with its cement-gray walls and wooden benches, he looked pasty and white; his cold was less severe than the night before, but still tight in his chest. As a Vancouver Sun journalist later reported, other athletes in the locker room were not much better off:

One was inconspicuously chewing his fingernails; another held his head upon his knees, as if praying to someone above for strength for the coming race; yet another was sitting stonily on a bench in a far corner, taking in everything without a reply to anything; another was unconsciously turning from side to side; another just sat still, throwing examining glances around the room; and finally, one sat alone on a bench with a nervous smile affixed upon his face.

Bannister felt the same tension. The past few hours had been almost unbearable for him. As he had eaten a light breakfast and taken a short walk in the Empire Village earlier, he felt as if his whole future, as he later described it, was "hanging on a knife edge." He didn't want to endure the agony of willing his body beyond its breaking point. He feared coming under the glare of so many people again and knew that as he stepped up to the starting line he would feel weak and almost unable to stand. It was intolerable, and yet there he was, a warm-up away from race time.

Bannister had never expected to be running competitively at this point in his life. If he had won in Helsinki two years before, he would have been happy to hang up his spikes and dedicate himself fully to medicine. But the sting from his devastating loss at the Olympics had driven him to continue running and to seek the four-minute mile as evidence that his approach to sport still had merit. When he ran his 3:59.4, he thought that this would have been triumph enough, but Landy did him one better at Turku, and without pacing. No, this race today was the climax. He had to win it. Failure would confirm the critics who called him supercilious for following his own methods and not theirs. Failure would taint his May 6 race and validate the claim that a British newspaper had printed that same morning, telling him that he had "never won a really important race when the others weren't in there to help you." He had to get in there today, spikes flying and elbows pushing, and beat Landy and the rest of the field in a race in which anything could happen. The pressures were much the same as they had been in Helsinki—expectant British public, big crowd, critics waiting to pounce—but Bannister was not the same man anymore. He had a mentor in Stampfl, training partners in Chataway and Brasher, and a more complete understanding of how important it was to have faith in himself. The question remained, however: how good was Landy? And could Landy change gears at the race's end to fight off Bannister's kick?

As the starter called the milers out to the track, Bannister remembered that he also had six other runners to deal with, each with his own plan to win. Unless Landy played a waiting game, he would not have to vie for position in the pack, but Bannister would. If he was blocked off by one or two of them, it would ruin his chances. English runners David Law and Ian Boyd, both Oxonians, had best mile times of 4:08 and were not likely to prove too much of a challenge. Irishman Victor Milligan, his country's team captain and mile champion, and Canadian Richard Ferguson, a strong runner whose best distance was two miles, had no allegiance to either Bannister or Landy and would be fighting for their own space in the field. The ones Bannister had to watch most carefully were New Zealanders William Baillie and Murray Halberg. Halberg, twenty years old and winner of the Benjamin Franklin Mile in Philadelphia, had already clocked a 4:04.4 mile. Rumor had it that the Kiwis might set an early pace for Landy; regardless of that, Halberg was likely to be a risk throughout the race.

Five minutes before the race the concrete stands encircling three sides of the track were packed to capacity. A helicopter chartered by Life magazine and the Vancouver Sun loomed at a distance, the sound of its spinning blades reverberating around the bowl-shaped stadium besieged by hundreds of parked cars and the continuing advance of trams dropping off more and more spectators outside its walls. From the helicopter's aerie perch, the crowds looked like a calm sea of white shirts and hats. Up close, however, particularly at the entrances, it was chaos: scalpers were selling tickets for a hundred dollars; fire wardens tried to impose order on the lines still gathered at the gates; and schoolboys scaled the four ticket booths to secure a view of the race.

Everyone's eyes were glued to the milers as they jogged around the track and began taking off their sweats. The other finals held that day, including the field events and the 440-yard race, might as well have taken place on the sidelines. The mile race was all-consuming. The Duke of Edinburgh, who had seen Bannister race in London and Landy in Australia, arrived to watch the final, with a twenty-one-gun salute announcing his presence. He was seated in the decorated royal box, having already inspected the Seafourth Highland Regiment in their crimson jackets, kilts, and high feathered caps while bagpipes played behind him on the infield.

Under the steel roof at one end of the stadium Norris McWhirter was ready with his stopwatch to help call the race for BBC Radio with journalist Rex Alston, who, McWhirter knew, had very little understanding of the intricacies of the race despite being a former Cambridge runner. McWhirter would not have made it to the stadium in time had he not been staying at the Duke of Edinburgh's hotel. With his brother Ross and a few others crammed into an Austin 7, they pulled away from the hotel at the same time as the duke's limousine and proceeded to follow in the wake of his police escort, cutting through the snarl of traffic descending on the stadium. In the radio commentary box next to Norris, his brother was preparing to help call the race for the Australian Broadcast Network. Adjacent to him was Chris Chataway, lured there by a Canadian broadcaster. Everyone was waiting for the race to begin.

It was late evening in England, and Bannister's parents, recently returned from a fortnight in Cambridge, were listening to the race on the radio at their Harrow home. Their daughter Joyce, who had sent her brother a "good luck" telegram the day before, was in her Bristol home, tuned to the same station. Stampfl sat still at the kitchen table in his King's Road apartment, the radio on. His wife, Pat, was fidgeting, as nervous as he was, just showing it differently. Despite receiving several postcards about Landy's extraordinary fitness from athletes he had coached who were in Vancouver, Stampfl remained convinced that Bannister could win, but the waiting was torture. At St. Mary's hospital the night shift was also tuned in to the BBC to listen to the race. To many, Bannister exemplified the best of what it was to be an Englishman: he was well rounded, masterfully disciplined, an explorer of new territory, and brave enough, as he said himself, to run "into extinction."

It was Sunday morning in Australia when the race was scheduled to begin. The Landy family, apart from John's father, who was with him in Vancouver, had congregated at their East Malvern house to listen to the radio broadcast. Landy's mother had decided not to send John a telegram wishing him luck, thinking it might be just more pressure for him to handle.

Percy Cerutty was in his Domain Road house off the Botanical Gardens, eager to hear whether Landy would follow the instructions he had sent about how to run the race. So far Landy had not responded to his letters, despite the news in the Melbourne press that his former miler was running the Vancouver race according to Cerutty's "Secret Plans." Those athletes who were close to Landy but not in attendance at the Empire Games, including Les Perry and Robbie Morgan-Morris, were also sitting anxiously in anticipation of the broadcast. The whole country was anchored in the moment as well. "Australia considered Landy unbeatable," sportswriter Adrian McGregor later commented. "He was all we mythologized about ourselves. Gallant, modest, idealistic, but beneath it all a champion equipped with [a] destructive will."

At dinnertime in New York, Wes Santee was staring at the camera in front of him at the RCA Exhibition Center. Instead of a singlet and spikes, he was dressed in a tan Marine uniform and dress shoes. Half the age of the four other men at the table with him—Asa Bushnell and Kenneth Wilson, secretary and president, respectively, of the U.S. Olympic Committee; Jesse Abramson, the New York Herald Tribune's lead sports columnist; and Ben Grauer, NBC's talking head—Santee twisted uncomfortably in his seat. He felt as if he were getting ready for the race himself. He watched it unfold in his head. Danna was off the set and in the shadows, but he was at least comforted to have her there.

"Any word yet from Edinburgh?" Grauer asked into the phone, obviously having trouble coordinating the transmission delay. "I mean Vancouver."

Santee knew that the race was about to begin and, as with the 1,500-meter Olympic trials in Los Angeles two years before, he was on the sidelines. The American miler knew how it would be run. Bannister had the faster kick, and Landy could set a brutal pace. If Bannister failed to hang on to the Australian by the end of the third lap, he was finished. But as Santee waited for the transmission from Empire Stadium to appear on the monitor to his side, the race he imagined on the darkened screen included him toeing the line. Landy went out first, Santee right behind him, and Bannister in third, ten yards back. Santee stayed in the middle, all the way through three and a half laps. The pace was fast, but he had the conditioning to hold. With a half-lap to go, Santee struck, a Mal Whitfield technique. Landy and Bannister expected him to make his move coming out of the last curve, not going into it. By the time they realized what he had done, Santee was past the two milers in a flash; they never had a chance. With sixty yards to home, Bannister delivered his kick, but he was too late. Santee had already started on his. It was Santee through the tape first, then Bannister or Landy—it didn't matter who came in second.

This was the race as it should have happened, but Santee felt he had been robbed of the chance. The closest he could get to a battle against Bannister and Landy was via radio signal from Vancouver, through Seattle, and into New York. He knew that when the screen finally flickered in the exhibition hall, showing the runners in Vancouver pacing in front of the starting line, the race would already have started in real time.

In Empire Stadium, two minutes before 2:30 P.M., the scheduled start of the mile event, the sun cleared from behind a bank of clouds and the stands and track were enveloped in light. It was seventy-two degrees, with mild humidity. The faintest of breezes stirred the air in the stadium. Officials in green coats cleared the track as Bannister and several others peeled off their sweatsuits on the infield. Bannister wanted to stay as warm as possible until he had to stand, exposed, at the starting line. Landy was the first one ready, walking back and forth on the track, head down, rubbing his deeply tanned arms. His light jog during warm-up proved to him that his foot would be okay, and this improved his confidence. Before the start, he returned to the infield and shook hands with Bannister, who was perspiring and appeared deathly pale as he kicked off his sweatpants. Landy stepped back onto the track, focusing on the effort ahead. He walked away from the others, for a moment on his own. He knew he needed to run so fast that nobody "was going to be left standing."

Bannister was one of the last runners on the track. He checked the bottoms of his track shoes, making sure that no cinders had clumped to his spikes while warming up. It was almost time. Tense and anxious to start, he seemed unaware that anyone else was in the stadium. He told himself that if Landy went off fast in a fifty-six-second first lap and then ran the next lap in sixty seconds, he was unlikely to have the stamina to finish the next two laps in sixty seconds each. He would have to slow some, coming back to Bannister. As long as Bannister ran evenly, he would conserve energy and be able to win.

The eight runners settled in their lanes five yards behind the start. At last the two great sub-four-minute milers were facing off against one another. In the inside position, Landy wore green shorts and a white singlet. Halberg was in all black next to him. Ferguson, from Canada, was in the third lane, Milligan in fourth. Bannister had the fifth lane, wearing all white with the rose of England on his breast. His countrymen Boyd and Law were in the two lanes outside of him, and Baillie of New Zealand was in the outside lane. The spectators made a steady rumble of noise, punctuated by shouts like "Go Landy!" and "Come on, Bannister!" but most cheered for Ferguson, the host country favorite. Cameramen on elevated platforms in the infield directed their lenses at the starting line, ready to broadcast this battle to millions from coast to coast. Hundreds of journalists waited with open notepads to record their impressions for the following day's papers. The team of timekeepers readied their new $8,000 Omega watches, which had been checked, double-checked, and verified for accuracy.

Next to McWhirter in the radio commentary box, Rex Alston spoke into the microphone, his clear, sharp voice reaching across oceans. "There is a tremendous feeling of excitement and tension here on this beautiful summer's day, [with a] bit of a breeze."

Down on the infield, the starter shouted over the crowd: "To your marks!"

The eight runners moved forward to the line. Bannister ran his fingers through his hair and glanced toward Landy. They settled at the line. Landy shot his own look toward Bannister and then crouched down, facing straight ahead, preparing to be the hunted. The surge of adrenaline made any pain in his foot insignificant. Bannister positioned himself at a slight angle toward Landy. He was standing nearly erect. Nothing else in the world mattered but what he had to do in the next four minutes. It had all come down to this.

A track official raised his arms over his head, signaling for the crowd to quiet down. A hush fell over the stadium.

"Set!" The starter yelled. He raised his pistol up to the sky with his right arm.

Bannister took a deep breath, bending slightly forward. His long thin legs looked frail. Landy deepened his crouch, ready to burst ahead. The world waited for the bark of the gun. Its sound echoed around the stadium as the milers swept forward, a wave of flying arms and legs all breaking toward the inside lane. Gun smoke and a cloud of clay dust trailed in their wake. As they went into the first turn the burly New Zealander Baillie angled into the lead, his taller, more fair-haired countryman Halberg behind him. Landy was third, Law was fourth, and Bannister clawed for room in fifth. The field remained tight as they moved around the turn, strides lengthening and shortening while they fought for position. Law cut in between Landy and Halberg to move into third. As Law surged toward the back straight he stutter-stepped, and his right shoe went flying off his foot, landing in the third lane. He kept running and moved into first down the back straight. Positioned at the outside edge of the pole lane, Bannister remained a few yards behind Landy, expecting him to take the lead soon.

As they approached the 220-yard mark at the end of the back straight Landy was ready to move ahead of Baillie and Law. He looked like a man impatiently waiting to get through a narrow doorway with two people blocking his way. The pace wasn't fast enough. At the mark Don Macmillan, who had previously arranged with Landy to call out his split times, yelled out "28.9!" and "Three yards behind!" Hearing his time and Bannister's position, Landy increased his tempo, realizing that he had to take the lead now and set the pace. From the inside edge of the second lane he shifted past the two milers as if they were standing still.

The crowds bordering the track gasped as the Australian made his move. High in the stadium, Rex Alston spoke quickly into his microphone as the race unfolded. "Landy has decided that he must crack on the pace and has taken over the lead with 150 yards to go to the end of the first lap. Landy in his green shorts for Australia ... slim, sallow, curly dark hair ... and he is setting out a very fast pace."

Landy was clearly into his rhythm, his arms and legs moving smoothly as he distanced himself from the field into the home straight of the first lap. Halberg was second, Baillie third, and Bannister fourth. Law, having lost his shoe, slowed almost to a stop. Bannister didn't want to be trapped behind Baillie or Halberg when they made the first turn of the second lap, so he moved ahead, increasing his speed almost imperceptibly as he passed the two. Landy finished the first lap in 58.2 with Bannister five yards and six-tenths of a second behind him. The other runners, including Halberg in third and Ferguson in fourth, looked incapable of keeping the pace that Landy continued to set. The race between the two sub-four-minute milers had finally been joined in earnest, and the crowd cheered.

In New York Santee watched the race unfold on the monitor. He pictured himself on the track equidistant between Landy and Bannister. He would let Landy continue to set the pace, but make sure not to let the Australian get too far ahead. Bannister would continue to trail at Santee's heels, waiting for the last lap to make his move. Santee would be there to block him out and surge ahead to victory. The four men at the table with him in the studio could see in his eyes that he wanted very much to be someplace else.

In the second lap Landy turned on the heat, his cut foot forgotten. For the first quarter he had held back, conserving his strength. But now he meant to stretch his lead yard by yard until he broke Bannister. As he rounded out of the turn the gap lengthened. He didn't want to see Bannister's shadow or hear his breath for the rest of the race. If Bannister was near him in the last lap, Landy knew he would have trouble holding off the English miler's kick.

At the 660-yard mark the Australian, striding purposefully and smoothly, was eight yards ahead of Bannister. In the turn Landy picked up even more speed, increasing his lead to ten yards. It was a huge distance between the two milers. Bannister knew Landy was going too fast for him. A few more yards, and Bannister would lose contact. Psychologically it would be the end of his race. As it was, with this gap between them, Bannister suffered the absence of someone to pull him around the track. In a sense he was running as much on his own as the Australian was. He couldn't panic, though. If he got up on his toes to catch Landy too soon, it would be suicide. Bannister had to believe he could still win.

"Landy comes down the straight for half-distance," Alston told his BBC listeners, his voice edged with anxiety. "Bannister with his prancing, high-stepping stride, ten yards behind, ready, poised." McWhirter, who was very worried about the distance separating his friend from Landy, showed his stopwatch to Alston as the Australian crossed the starting line for the second time. "Here goes Landy now has passed half-distance, Bannister second, Ferguson third, Halberg fourth, Milligan fifth, Baillie sixth, Boyd seventh, and Law has dropped out and limping. Landy is doing what I think a lot of people thought he would do....At-half distance, 1:58.2. Bannister has done 1:59.4."

In the nearby box Chataway was enraptured by the showdown. He knew these two milers better than anybody and chattered anxiously into the microphone. "Dangerous gap there between Landy and Bannister. Landy is looking stronger and Roger has got to close that gap, and soon, if he's going to be there at the finish, with his no doubt superior finishing burst."

Santee was barely able to keep his legs still. Landy was fifteen yards ahead, a distance that the Kansas miler never would have let his competition get. At this point in the race he would have been three or four yards back at the most. And given the pace, Santee knew he would have had enough in reserve to kick past in the final lap. Bannister would still have some fire left too. He had yet to challenge, but unless he moved up, and did so quickly, he was out of the race.

Tens of millions around the world had stopped what they were doing to listen to the race or to watch it on their televisions. In homes and bars conversations paused, children hushed, and bridge games were delayed, pool cues abandoned, forks put down, and drinks left untouched. The collective silence was profound. Those rooting for Landy hoped that he could keep to his fast pace. Those behind Bannister prayed he could bridge the gap.

The crowd in Empire Stadium began to cheer wildly. Both milers were under two minutes for the first half-mile. Landy heard his time called. At this pace he expected to cross the three-quarter-mile mark in 2:58. He had not seen or heard from Bannister but still needed to keep the pressure intense. This was the critical lap for Landy. He ran hard yet kept his stride economical and relaxed. From the stands he looked inexhaustible.

Two more minutes of struggle, Bannister told himself going into the third lap, then it would be over. It would be all over. He was running to his schedule but was far back, and his rival was amazingly maintaining his pace. Bannister felt his confidence weaken. What if Landy never slowed and came back to him? What if Landy was capable of a 3:56 or better? At this point fifteen yards separated them; he needed to be at Landy's shoulder by the last lap, or it was over. Unless Bannister adjusted his speed, unless he relinquished the pace he had planned to run for the one being forced on him by Landy, he would lose. Into the turn Bannister increased the tempo of his circular stride, but in such small measures that from the stands it was nearly impossible to notice he had accelerated. He was like a ball gathering momentum down a hill. First he took one yard from Landy, then two, then three, closing the gap gradually so as not to exert too much energy. His legs ached from the effort, but by the back straight he was only five yards back.

As they sped into the turn Bannister felt himself connected again to Landy. He watched the Australian's stride, almost mesmerized by the steady, rhythmic strike of Landy's spikes on the cinder track. In his mind, Bannister had drawn a "cord" around Landy, and as they moved around the turn he pulled himself closer and closer.

"Here they come into the straight," Alston said enthusiastically. "Bannister is striding up to Landy ... he's running absolutely beautifully, a much bigger stride. Fifty yards to go to the bell, and Bannister is at Landy's elbow....Now what's going to happen?"

At the bell Landy clocked 2:58.4, and Bannister was only three-tenths of a second behind him. Ferguson was twenty yards back in third place, followed closely by the rest of the field, but everyone's attention was on the two leaders. Photographers lined the infield snapping shots. Newsreel cameras whirred, and tens of thousands of spectators jumped up and down, many shouting until their throats went hoarse. The race was everything they had expected, and more. At this pace the two milers might break four minutes too.

Santee was witnessing a race playing out exactly as he had suspected it would. He desperately wanted to be there to take advantage of the strategy he had devised for this final lap. He could almost see himself in the monitor, running just a half-lane wide of Landy so as not to step on his heels. If Bannister wanted to pass Santee, the English miler would have to step out into the second lane, and this would force him to run just enough extra distance to prove fatal. If Santee had been there—and this was what was so hard to bear—he knew he would have been in exactly the right position to make his break in the final curve. His kick was as good as Bannister's, or better, and Landy would have been too tired from playing the rabbit to counter. By the start of the fourth lap Santee knew that victory would have been his to grasp.

Landy turned into the first bend, shooting a glance over his shoulder. He saw Bannister's shadow and heard his breathing. His hunter had pulled close, too close. This was the race now. Bannister was not yet run off his feet. Landy had to hope that his rival had become exhausted from drawing himself back in contention. It was time to go. Landy fought gallantly to drive down the track at a greater pace than before. This was his move. Now was the moment to crack Bannister. Out of the turn into the back straight, Landy pulled away again from Bannister—one yard, two, three. Landy's shadow lengthened in front of him into the next lane. He could not see Bannister's. As Landy approached the final 220-yard mark the noise from the crowd drowned out Macmillan's call. But he could see his Australian teammates gesturing wildly, as if to say, "Keep it going, you've got him." Bannister should have made his move by now. When is it? Landy thought, looking back yet again. When is the kick going to come? Perhaps he had finally stolen Bannister's kick. Landy began to lose momentum, knowing he had given everything, but hoping it was enough.

"Landy has got a lead of three yards," Alston said, gripping his microphone. "Two hundred twenty yards to go—I don't think Bannister will be able to catch him. Landy is running beautifully."

Bannister dashed into the final turn, shocked that Landy was still driving so hard. This man was a machine. Because Bannister had abandoned his even pace in the third lap, he was more tired at this point than he had expected to be. They had run so fast, for so long. Bannister had to win, though. He had too much to prove to himself and to others. His finishing kick had to be there in the end. It had not been in Helsinki. Every hour of training, every race, every sacrifice, every bit of his love for running, had come down to this final moment, this final half-lap around the track. When they came out of this bend into the final straight, he had to be close enough to strike. Once again he drew a bead on Landy's back. His legs had to be deadening, Bannister told himself. Stride by stride, Bannister closed the gap between them. If Landy had only known how much he had exhausted his competitor, he might have found the strength to go faster, but he didn't know. The front-runner never did.

As they neared the home straight, Bannister marshaled his remaining kick. This was his final chance. This was the point in the race he and Stampfl had decided Landy would never anticipate, this was the strike he had practiced with Chataway. Bannister needed to win. He had to win. The Australian could run as an expression of the best that was within him, but Bannister ran to be better than anyone else. This was the moment to reveal that he was. Ninety yards from the tape, Bannister swung his arms high and lengthened his stride. He urged his tired muscles into action. The effort took every shred of will and heart he had left. When he passed Landy, he wanted to do so fast.

Coming out of the bend, Landy thought he had finally shaken Bannister. He could no longer see Bannister's shadow. Good thing, since Landy knew he had no more strength in his legs. He looked over his left shoulder to make sure he had succeeded.

Exactly at that moment Bannister hurled himself around Landy on the right in two long strides, seeing the Australian glance the other way and knowing that the hesitation would cost him, if only the smallest fraction of a second. At seventy yards to the tape, Bannister seized the lead. It was exhilaration. It was triumph. Although excruciatingly painful to keep his speed, this was the moment he loved most in running, the moment when his spirit fused with the physical act of running. The roar of the crowd pushed him onward. Everything was a blur but the finish line. He sped down the track, momentum carrying him now. Landy tried to kick again down the homestretch but knew that his legs were finished.

"Bannister has passed Landy," Alston shouted excitedly, losing any sense of unbiased composure. "He comes into the straight. It's going to be Bannister's race. Landy is flagging. Here comes Bannister, striding absolutely magnificently. He's got a lead of two yards, three yards, four yards, about fifteen yards to go, and Bannister...."

The English miler sprinted to the finish, his long stride unfailing. With a last drive off his right foot, he leapt forward, head back in sheer exultation. He broke through the tape, victory his at last.

"He's done it! He's done it!" Chataway exclaimed into the microphone, tens of thousands of Canadian listeners sharing in his excitement.

A stride and a half past the tape, Bannister was in a state of collapse. The will that had held his legs up was now spent. Landy finished second, five yards behind. His shoulders slackened, and he closed his eyes briefly, as if he wanted to be anywhere at that moment but there. He slowed and walked forward as the English team manager, Leslie Truelove, kept Bannister, whose face was deathly pale, from falling. The track was swallowed up with officials and athletes. Ferguson came in third, Milligan fourth, Boyd fifth, Halberg sixth, and Baillie seventh, but they were forgotten. In the stands guards kept a feverish crowd from rushing the track.

Landy tried to step clear of the melee, but too many people surrounded him. He had run his hardest, done everything he could, yet Bannister never broke. "Hard luck, John....Great run, though, great effort." He gave his well-wishers a smile, but there was little anyone could say to quell his disappointment.

Bannister drew in several deep breaths, still held up by his team manager. People surrounded him, congratulating him, patting his back, shaking his hand. When his legs finally regained some strength, there was only one person he wanted to see. He stood upright, loosened himself from Truelove, and jogged forward, filled with the glory of his triumph. Weaving through the mass of bodies, he found Landy between two policemen and threw his arms around him.

"You were colossal, Roger." Landy smiled.

"I knew that if I did beat you, it would take everything I had," Bannister said, keeping his left arm around the Australian, knowing the anguish he must have been feeling.

Photographers herded around them to get a shot of the two together. Fans were pushing and pulling to get at them. Bannister leaned backward to draw more breath. He nearly collapsed again, and Landy, looking absent of strain, held him strong.

In the infield, away from the pandemonium, the four timekeepers who had clicked their stopwatches when Bannister broke through the tape and the three who clocked Landy settled on the official time. The three timekeepers stationed at the 1,500-meter mark had already agreed that Landy, who had led the race 120 yards from the finish, was only one-tenth of a second shy of his world record of 3:41.9 set in Turku. The official times for the top three finishers, Landy, Bannister, and Ferguson, were decided and given to the announcer to read over the public-address system. Over the loudspeaker the announcer declared what most in the stadium already knew unofficially. Nonetheless, a quiet descended throughout the stands. "Winner of event six, the mile, Roger Bannister, in a time of 3:58.8....Second place, John Landy, in a time of 3:59.6. ... Third place . .."

Cheers and applause boomed through the stadium as Bannister and Landy jogged around the track, waving at the stands. In the race of the century, in the contest between the first two milers ever to break four minutes, both runners had once again crossed the threshold. It was perfection in sport.

In New York Wes Santee was alight with excitement as he spoke into the camera. "It was a magnificent race, and I think the better man won.... Those two boys just threw everything into it, and the result was this greatest of mile races ever run. Bannister was magnificent, but so was Landy." As the other panelists commented on the race, Santee looked off wistfully. The two milers had run tremendously, and he would call them later to say so, but Santee still believed that had he been in the thick of the battle he would have breasted the tape first. Sitting there in the studio, he was worn out, as if he had actually run in the race himself. As he later explained, "I was more exhausted because I hadn't been there."

In Melbourne Landy's family was deflated by the outcome. Reporters were keen for their comments, but they held off for the moment. Les Perry, agonized by his friend's defeat, called the Landy house to say how sorry he was that John had lost. He found that Landy's mother was philosophical, not full of lament. They were proud of John, with or without a victory. Cerutty, who usually used these big occasions to pontificate on his insights into Landy, was absent of comment. Robbie Morgan-Morris, who idolized Landy and was given the miler's singlet after his December 1952 run, best described what millions in his country felt that morning after hearing the news: "When Landy lost in Vancouver, the whole of Australia cried."

In London newspaper editors were already preparing the next day's headlines. Franz Stampfl, who had known Bannister would win from the moment Landy proved unable to shake him loose on the last turn, was quietly satisfied. For Stampfl the race was a triumph of the individual will, and he was simply glad to have helped in the effort. When he went to bed that night, still unable after all those years to sleep under sheets because of his memories of confinement, he himself was testament to this triumph, though he never would have admitted it.

In Vancouver, ten minutes after the race had finished and the crowd was starting to calm itself after the bedlam, Bannister donned his track suit with "England" stitched across its front and moved to the winner's stand. A green-capped official had placed the results of the mile race on the results board, including their times, below the oversized portrait of a saluting Queen Elizabeth. Bannister stepped up onto the top position, Landy to his right, Ferguson to his left. Bannister looked out across the stadium, overwhelmed by the sight of it all. It was his finest moment. He had beaten the best of competitors in John Landy. He had brought glory to his country. He had captured victory in a race greater than any numerical barrier. Roger Bannister had run the perfect mile.