Runners

THE PIONEER
Diane Charles
The story of how women fought their
way into the marathon is often told, but
less is known about those who came
before them, the trailblazers in track
and cross-country. One such runner is
Diane Leather (now Charles), who, on
May 29, 1954, became the first woman to
run sub-five minutes in the mile. Sixty
years on, she is at last being celebrated as
a barrier-breaker for her historic 4:59.6.
Growing up in Streetly, England,
Charles played lacrosse until age 19,
when the 1952 Helsinki Olympics caught
her imagination. She joined the Birchfield
Harriers in Birmingham, where
coach Dorette Nelson-Neal recognized
the young woman’s talent and steered
her to longer events (for women, “long”
meant cross-country, the 880 yards, and
occasionally, the mile). A year later, she
ran 5:02.6 for the mile—a world best.
The lead-up to that first sub-five mile
was dramatic: In 1953, Romania’s Edith
Treybal ran 5:00.3. On May 26, 1954,
Charles also fell a gasp short in a local
race, running 5:00.2. Three days later,
at the women’s track and field championships
in Birmingham, Leather set the
British record for the 880 yards, running
2:14.1. Later that afternoon, she lined up
for the mile. Almost from the start, she
ran alone. Her splits were wildly uneven,
yet with a final surge she dipped under
five minutes, with four-tenths of a second
to spare and half a lap clear of her
closest competitor.
Other than devoted track fans, however,
no one noticed. Women’s track
was well established by 1954 but limited
mainly to sprints and jumps; not until
1960 would women be allowed to race
farther than 200 meters in the Olympics,
and it wasn’t until 1967 that the
International Association of Athletics
Federations (IAAF) recognized women’s
world records in the mile and 1500
meters. (Charles’s time, run in a championship
with qualified timekeepers, is
considered valid by track statisticians.)
By contrast, when Roger Bannister just
23 days earlier became the first man to
break four minutes, he became an instant
legend. “It’s just the way it was,”
says Charles. “I did get a lot of attention
from people who knew what it meant.”
Charles broke the record four more
times, culminating in a 4:45 in 1955. She
set three ratified world records in the
880 yards, and won silver twice in the
800 meters at the European championships.
In one unforgettable 800 in 1957,
the London crowd jubilantly cheered
as she defeated two Russians in a Cold
War Britain versus USSR contest. Four
times, she won the competitive English
cross-country championship.
After retiring at age 27, Charles went
on to teach, do social work, and raise
four children. At age 81, she lives with
her husband of 55 years in a remote
corner of Cornwall, and remains modest
about her role in women’s running,
saying, “I had no idea that I would ever
be called a pioneer.” She prefers to avoid
acclaim, especially from the media.
Despite her reticence, Charles has
gotten more attention of late with the
recent 60th anniversary of her and
Bannister’s performances. Last May,
the two presented the inaugural Diane
Leather and Roger Bannister trophies
at the Bupa Westminster Mile outside
Buckingham Palace. Alison Leonard, 24,
won the women’s race in 4:35. “Meeting
Diane was fantastic,” Leonard wrote RW
in an e-mail. “She was pushing boundaries
in the 1950s, and she’s inspiring us
to push the boundaries today.”
Indeed, the current field of women
1500-meter runners is one of the deepest
and most exciting in memory, with
stars like Jenny Simpson—two-time
world medalist and 2014 Diamond
League Champion—and 18-year-old
prodigy-turned-pro Mary Cain. They
owe their event’s history to the woman
with the silky-smooth stride who, 60
years ago, stuck to the simple advice she
offers athletes today: “Train hard, and
give it all you’ve got.” —ROGER ROBINSON
Charles broke her
historic mile record
four more times. She
did it for the last time
in 1955, running 4:45
in London (above).
80 RUNNER’S WORLD JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2015