(NEWS CENTER Maine) -- On May 6, 1954, a young man from Maine became part of sports history.
That was the day in England when Roger Bannister became the first racer to run a mile in less than four minutes. The four-minute mile had been one of those seemingly impossible barriers in sports for a number of years, until Bannister broke it by just six-tenths of a second.
Running the race with him was George Dole, from Bath. Dole had started running as a student at Morse High School, then was on the Yale University track team. He was a graduate student at Oxford University in England, and a member of that school's track team at the time of the record-setting race.
Dole told NEWS CENTER there was great anticipation of breaking the four-minute mile, as well as some doubt it would ever happen. He says that day's race was between Oxford and the Britain AAU, and that Bannister and two other runners entered with the goal of beating the four-minute mark.
Dole started on the pole. He ran hard for the first hundred yards. At that point, three elite runners moved to the front and Dole faded out of the screen and into a happy and productive life.
He had run 4:10 before, but on that day he started too fast, and ended up in fifth place at 4:25.
Dole said he was so interested in what was happening in front of him, that he didn't pay too much attention to what he was doing. He was just past halfway through the final lap when Bannister finished. Dole said he could not see the finish because of all the people on the infield.
He says he still remembers the announcer giving the time for the race, and when he started saying the time as "three minutes…" Dole says people started cheering so loudly they couldn't hear the rest of the number.
It was a milestone moment in sports, although Bannister's record would be broken by an Australian runner a month and a half later.
"I always said I was last in the first," Dole told NEWS CENTER. However, at the 40th anniversary of the run, he learned that he had actually passed one of the "rabbits" in the race who had pulled to the outside and jogged to the finish.
Dole was born in Fryeburg and grew up in Bath. He was the valedictorian of his class at Morse High Schoool and did his undergraduate work at Yale.
He says the race is "a nice memory", but less important than the rest of his life. He ran only a couple of weeks after that famous day. Dole returned to the United States and went on to become the Reverend Doctor George Dole, earn a doctorate from Harvard University and have a career as a highly respected theologian.
Dole returned to Bath in 1999 to become pastor of a church. He is a highly respected leader of the Swedenborgian Church. Dole said he was still running regularly at age of 82, and said a few people know about his role in sports history but many do not.