Thursday Nov 18, 2021
Cunningham competed in the 1500 m event at the 1932 and 1936 Summer Olympics and finished fourth and second, respectively.[1] While on the ship, traveling from the U.S. to Germany in 1936, he was voted "Most Popular Athlete" by his fellow Olympians.
Cunningham won the Sullivan medal in 1933 for his achievements in middle-distance running. In 1934, he set the world record for the mile run at 4:06.8, which stood for three years. He also set world records in the 800 m in 1936 and in the indoor mile in 1938.[2][5] Also in 1938, Cunningham set a personal best time in the mile run at 4:04.4 testing Dartmouth College's Alumni Gymnasium indoor track, engineered to allow faster times than most indoor facilities. This time was not accepted as a world record, however, because Dartmouth had provided Cunningham pacing runners, which was against the rules at the time.[6]
Cunningham's unachieved goal was a four-minute mile, a goal attempted and unmet by many other runners. Several theorists proclaimed it was impossible physiologically for humans. Some athletes tried running steady and fast-paced the whole time. Others tried to go steady for the first half then give it all they had. Glenn worried about the strength of his legs burned in his youth, so he started slow – running in the pack. He would be fresher in the second half – and would almost be sprinting the last 100 yards to the finish.
A four-minute mile is the completion of a mile run (1.6 km) in four minutes or less. It was first achieved in 1954 by Roger Bannister, at age 25, in 3:59.4.[1] The "four-minute barrier" has since been broken by over 1,400 athletes,[2] and is now the standard of professional middle distance runners in several cultures. In the 65 years since, the mile record has been lowered by almost 17 seconds, and currently stands at 3:43.13, by Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco, at age 24, in 1999.[3][4] Running a mile in four minutes translates to a speed of 15 miles per hour (24 km/h).[
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