Roger Bannister's shoes fetch huge price at auction
Thursday 10 September 2015 18:28, UK
The shoes worn by Roger Bannister when he ran the first sub-four-minute mile have sold for £266,500 at auction.
An anonymous telephone bidder agreed to pay the huge sum, which was more than £200,000 above the maximum price predicted by Christie's auction house.
Bannister won the worldwide battle to beat the four-minute mark when he ran three minutes, 59.4 seconds at the Iffley Road cinder track in Oxford in May 1954.
"They are the symbol of not only an historic moment in sporting history, but demonstrate what humans can achieve with determination and persistence," Christie's head of sale for the auction Kate Summers said.
Bannister was later given a knighthood and, now 86, lives in Oxford with his wife Moyra.
The former doctor suffers from Parkinson's and plans to donate some of the proceeds of the auction to Autonomic Charitable Trust, which encourages neurological research.
