Roger Bannister (l) passes John Landy near the finish line to win the Miracle Mile, Vancouver, 1954. This famous photograph was taken by Vancouver photographer Charlie Warner. (BCSHF)

The summer of 2004 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the most significant sporting event ever to take place in British Columbia: the running of the so-called "Miracle Mile" at Vancouver's Exhibition Stadium on 9 August 1954. The occasion was the British Empire Games, being held in British Columbia for the first time. The event was the men's mile race, featuring the world's two greatest distance runners, Roger Bannister of England and Australia's John Landy. It was the first time that two runners who had covered the distance in less than four minutes would compete in the same race. The stage was set to make history.

Until the 1950s, the sub-four minute mile was considered an impossibility. The human body could not stand it, said all the experts; the heart would surely burst under the strain. The fastest time for the mile stood at 4:01.4, set in 1945 by the Swedish runner Gunder Haegg. It was thought to be highly unlikely that anyone would better it.

All of that changed on 6 May 1954 during a race on a cinder track at Oxford University in England. Roger Bannister, then a 25-year-old medical student and his country's fastest miler, knew that Landy, and the American runner Wes Santee, were both closing in on the four-minute barrier and he was determined to get there first. Pushed by his two pacers, Bannister burst across the finish line and collapsed. "I felt like an exploded flashlight with no will to live," he later recalled of that moment. The crowd held its breath. And then the announcer made it official. Bannister had run the mile in 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds, a new world record. The barrier was down.

The record stood for just 46 days. Competing in a race in Finland in June, Landy set a new record of 3:57.9, setting the stage for the Vancouver showdown.

Once the historic Empire Games race got underway, Landy surged to the lead and remained there for the next three laps. Bannister was content to fall into place a few yards back. The dramatic turning point of the race occurred as the leaders made the final turn into the homestretch. Landy glanced over his left shoulder to see where the other runners were. At that precise moment, the crowd of 35,000 rising to its feet, Bannister flashed past on the right, and drew away to win the race. The final times were: Bannister, 3:58.8; Landy, 3:59.6. For the first time, two runners in the same race had broken the four-minute mile. (Not to be forgotten is Rich Ferguson, from Calgary, who finished third in a time of 4:04.6, a Canadian record.)

"Beating John Landy was my defining race," Bannister wrote in his memoirs. The young Briton retired after the Games and went on to a distinguished medical career. He was awarded a knighthood in 1975. Landy also retired, but only temporarily. He returned to the track and ran several more sub-four-minute miles in competition, though he never again held the world record. A sporting legend in his homeland, he is today governor of the Australian state of Victoria.

The "Miracle Mile" was a significant event not just in the history of sport but also in the history of sport journalism. Television was a brand new medium at the time, and the race was the first major sporting event broadcast live across North America. As well, the race was the lead story in the first issue of Sports Illustrated magazine.

By the way, the present world record for the mile, held by Morocco's Hicham El Guerrouj, is 3:43.1, and experts are still predicting that it can't get any lower.