On this date, May 6, in 1954, in Oxford, England, 25-year-old medical student Roger Bannister became the first athlete to break the four-minute mile, finishing with a time of 3 minutes and 59.4 seconds.
In other news, there’s currently a controversy over whether or not transgender girls and women should be allowed to compete against biological girls and women in sporting events.
To that debate, we add a few more facts:
- The current men’s world record for the mile run is 3:43:13 by Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco.
- The current boys’ high school record for the mile is 3:53:43 by Alan Webb.
- High school boys have been running sub-four-minute miles since at least the 1960s.
- The current women’s world record for the mile run is 4:12:33 by Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands.
The athletic performance gap between men and women is so big that the best women in the world couldn’t come close to competing against high school boys.
If transgender girls and women competing against biological girls and women becomes a thing, biological female athletes will become extinct. “Competitive athlete” will no longer be on the list of things that women can be.