Use Of English Test 3 – The Four-Minute Mile

It is the nature of athletic records that they are broken and their place is taken by new ones. Yet in many sports happeningseventsgamesmatches, there is a mark which is not considerablesignificantcentralmajor in itself, but which becomes a legend as athletes try outtry fortry ontry to break it. The most publicfamousnoticeableknown of these is the attempt to run the mile in smallerunderlowerless than four minutes.

In 1945, the mile record was broken downlesseneddecreasedbrought down to 4 minutes, 1.5 seconds. And there, for nine years, it stuck. Then, in 1954, a medical student knownnicknamedcalledentitled Roger Bannister decided to try and break the record. He had been runningstudyingtryingtraining for this day since running the mile in 4 minutes, 2 seconds the pastpreviousformerearly year.

Two other runners set the pace for him, and oninbywith 250 yards to go he burst ahead for the finish. He wrote afterthenafterwardsnext: ‘My body had exhausted all its energy, but it gotwentrancontinued on running just the same. Those laterlastlatelatest few seconds seemed never-ending. I could see the line of the finishing tape. I jumped like a man making a desperate attempt to save himself from danger.’ Bannister’s time was 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds. In spite ofHoweverAlthoughBut this record has been broken on many incidentsoccasionstimestimes since, Bannister’s achievement will never be forgotten.