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I couldn't touch my toes with straight legs, but I could break 4 minutes for the mile.
Roger Bannister
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Roger Bannister
Age: 88 †
Born: 1929
Born: March 23
Died: 2018
Died: March 3
Athlete
Athletics Competitor
Autobiographer
Middle-Distance Runner
Neurologist
Physician
Harrow
Sir Roger Gilbert Bannister
Sir Roger Bannister
Roger Gilbert Bannister
Break
Mile
Toes
Miles
Straight
Legs
Touch
Couldn
Minutes
More quotes by Roger Bannister
I've always been very impatient. At age 10 I frankly found life boring, and I can remember age 9 having the awful thought, as it seems now looking back on it, A war! That should liven things up a bit!
Roger Bannister
Sport is not about being wrapped up in cotton wool. Sport as about adapting to the unexpected and being able to modify plans at the last minute. Sport, like all life, is about taking risks.
Roger Bannister
The human spirit is indomitable. No one can ever say you must not run faster than this or jump higher than that. There will never be a time when the human spirit will not be able to better existing records.
Roger Bannister
When I was about to break a world record and become well known, my mother used to say that for her the important thing was for me to become a doctor - a career which had not been possible in her generation and in her society. Sport was something to be set aside.
Roger Bannister
It is a paradox to say the human body has no 'limit.' There must be a limit to the speed at which men can run. I feel this may be around 3:30 for the mile. However, another paradox remains - if an athlete manages to run 3:30, another runner could be found to marginally improve on that time.
Roger Bannister
Whether we athletes liked it or not, the 4-minute mile had become rather like an Everest: a challenge to the human spirit, it was a barrier that seemed to defy all attempts to break it, an irksome reminder that men's striving might be in vain.
Roger Bannister
It is the brain, not the heart or lungs, that is the critical organ.
Roger Bannister
No longer conscious of my movement, I discovered a new unity with nature. I had found a new source of power and beauty, a source I never dreamt existed.
Roger Bannister
My introduction to track racing was through the background of cross country running, which is not a sport perhaps as popular in America as it is in England.
Roger Bannister
I was always a great bundle of energy. As a child, instead of walking, I would run. And so running, which is a pain to a lot of people, was always a pleasure to me because it was so easy.
Roger Bannister
The mile has all the elements of a drama.
Roger Bannister
If there was the opportunity to climb a mountain, or to go ballooning, or some adventurous activity, I would always be keen to do it. I loved the countryside.
Roger Bannister
Doctors and scientists said breaking the four-minute mile was impossible, that one would die in the attempt. Thus, when I got up from the track after collapsing at the finish line, I figured I was dead
Roger Bannister
It's a question of spreading the available energy, aerobic and anaerobic, evenly over four minutes. If you run one part too fast, you pay a price. If you run another part more slowly your overall time is slower.
Roger Bannister
It had always been a British preoccupation to hold this mile record.
Roger Bannister
The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win.
Roger Bannister
I enjoy singing, and the instruments which truly move me are the horn, the trumpet and the cello.
Roger Bannister
I came from such a simple origin, without any great privilege, and I would say I also wanted to make a mark. It wasn't until I was about 15 that I appeared in a race.
Roger Bannister
I raced supremely well. I felt I was as well fitted to do it as I had ever been, and as perhaps I might ever be. I went climbing three weeks before, because I was feeling fed up with running.
Roger Bannister
Our house was bombed, and the roof fell in. We were sitting under the stairs of the basement, and we were quite safe, but it brought home the realization. In two nights 400 people were killed in small town.
Roger Bannister
