There was a time when running the mile in four minutes was the elusive holy grail, believed to be beyond the limits of human speed. In 1952, after suffering defeat at the Helsinki Olympics, three world-class runners set out individually to break that barrier. Roger Bannister was a young English medical student who epitomized the ideal of the amateur -- driven not just by winning but by the nobility of the pursuit. John Landy was the privileged son of a genteel Australian family, who as a boy preferred butterfly collecting to running but who trained relentlessly in an almost spiritual attempt to achieve this singular task. Then there was Wes Santee, the swaggering American, a Kansas farm boy who was a natural athlete and who believed he was just plain better than everybody else.
