In a time of three minutes....

It's the 60th anniversary of the first sub-four-minute mile.  I remember it well - because I missed it!  I can't remember now just why my mother insisted that we went out that evening, but we did and so I missed seeing live one of the great moments in sport - no video recording back then of course, so it was live or nothing. It was quite some time before I forgave her - she of course couldn't see what all the fuss was about - women!!  Looking back now I think what strikes me the most is how naïve and amateur by today's standards everybody was.  Chris Brasher had bad eyesight and ran wearing spectacles, and Chris Chataway was a smoker - "but not on race days", he used to say.  And then many people seriously suggested that the record should not stand as Bannister was effectively "paced" by Brasher and Chataway - commonplace today but back then seen by some as rather infra dig. It was a very different world.