Sir Roger Bannister, the first person to run a mile in under four minutes, has died aged 88. The Bannister family released a statement confirming the news on Sunday morning. In it, they noted the legendary runner “died peacefully” and “surrounded by his family who were as loved by him as he was loved by them.” Bannister made history on May 6, 1954, when he completed the mile distance in a time of three minutes, 59.4 seconds in Oxford, England. Additionally, in the same race Bannister also won gold at the 1954 Commonwealth Games over the same distance. Bannister went on to become a neurologist after his athletics career came to an end in 1954. He was then knighted in 1975. Bannister was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2011, but kept his spirits high, saying: “I do not want to make a fuss,” he said of the disease in 2014. “I make as light of it as I can.”
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