Banner Week in the Record Business: Aouita & Slaney

When it came up again, there was no expression there, nothing but running animal. She held her form.

By Kenny Moore, Sport Illustrated

Morocco's Said Aouita came flailing into the stretch of the 1500 meters in West Berlin's Olympic Stadium last Friday night looking as if his teeth were going...

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Mile

And here was all this power, suddenly, as if he had just joined the race... In the stretch he appeared taller than in earlier laps, expanding in the imagination.

By Kenny Moore, Sports Illustrated

Sebastian Coe turned into the last backstretch of the Dream Mile at the Bislett Games in Oslo in...

She Runs and We Are Lifted

Mary Decker is moved by a competitive yearning that rises from so deep in her character that it connects with her will to be loved.

By Kenny Moore, Sports Illustrated

What a glorious conceit it is to pick a Sportsman of the Year. Can anyone really study the ranks of different champions and...

Coe on the Go

His latest Mile world record having lasted but a week, Sebastian Coe came racing back to regain it in Brussels

By Kenny Moore, Sports Illustrated

As the gun sounded to begin the Golden Mile in Brussels' Heizel Stadium last Friday night, August 28th, Tom Byers was caught off balance. He was in...

The 3:49.4 Special

He had promised to go for the Mile record, and New Zealand's John Walker delivered, smashing the old mark by 1.6 seconds!

By Kenny Moore, Sports Illustrated

As Roger Bannister had 21 years earlier, John Walker worried about the wind. He had talked the officials at the meet in Goteborg, Sweden...

4 Minutes and 20 Years

In 1954, gasping with effort on Oxford's Iffley Road track, Roger Bannister ran the first 4 minute Mile. Now a prominent neurologist and chairman of the British Sports Council, his celebrity is undimmed, although critics say his idealist's view of athletics is anachronistic.

By Kenny Moore,...

Sportsman of the Year: 1966

Mile star Jim Ryun, 19, the youngest person ever selected as SI's Sportsman

By Sports Illustrated

In its first issue, in August 1954, Sports Illustrated reported the duel of the original 4 minute Milers, Roger Bannister and John Landy, at the British Empire Games in Vancouver. Bannister won...

A Time to Remember: 3:51.3

Leaving the whole world far behind him, Jim Ryun, the 19-year-old durable wonder of Kansas, smashes track's most treasured record—the Mile mark that has eluded American runners for 29 years

By Anita Verschoth, Sports Illustrated

After a few warmup sprints last Sunday on a field next to...

The summit chase of an organization Miler: Jim Beatty

"Everybody said the American runner is lazy, don't work. Now the American distance runner is the best in the vorld."

By John Lovesey, Sports Illustrated

Getting to the top these days is not so much a climb for mountaineers as it is an exercise in pyramidal logistics. A large expedition,...

A Man Conquers Himself

Gentle John Landy, after one of history's fastest Mile times, could feel only sadness and defeat. Here is the story of an amazing, dedicated athlete—and an amazing human being: "I'd rather lose a 3:58 Mile than win one in 4:10."

By Paul O'Neil, Sports Illustrated

The townspeople of Fresno,...