Monaco, Nov 22 (UNI) Roger Bannister and Diane Leather Charles, who respectively became the first man to run the mile in under four minutes and the first woman to break the five-minute barrier for the distance, were among the honourees at the ‘World Athletics Heritage Mile Night’ here, an IAAF statement said.
The event, hosted by World Athletics President Sebastian Coe on Thursday, brought together more than a dozen of history’s greatest milers, including eight of the last 10 living men’s outdoor world record holders.
Bannister and Leather Charles, who both achieved their barrier-breaking performances in May 1954, were recognised in the posthumous ‘Legend’ category. Bannister’s daughters, Erin Bannister-Townsend and Charlotte Bannister-Parker, and Leather Charles’s daughter, Lindsey Armstrong, attended the event to accept the awards on their parents’ behalf.