HISTORY provides a rich source of material for books and Jason Beck is not short of stories in The Miracle Mile: Stories of the 1954 British Empire and Commonwealth Games. Beck works as curator at the British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame in Vancouver, the Canadian city that staged the 1954 event, and his account focuses not only on the mile clash between Roger Bannister and John Landy but also on many of the other great clashes and performances.
Only half an hour after Bannister’s and Landy’s ‘miracle mile’, Jim Peters staggered into the stadium at the end of his dramatic, ill-fated marathon. Elsewhere, the Games saw the amazing Yvette Williams, the New Zealander who arrived in Vancouver as Olympic long jump champion and left as Commonwealth champion in not only long jump but discus and shot put as well.