History was made at the 2026 London Marathon on Sunday (Apr 26) when two men finished the 42km marathon in less than two hours. BRISBANE, Australia: On May 6, 1954, Sir Roger Bannister did what was deemed impossible in athletics: He ran a mile in less than four minutes. The milestone was celebrated worldwide, not just by athletics fans. It was considered at the time to be a similar achievement to scaling Mount Everest for the first time, which Sir Edmund Hilary and Tenzing Norgay had done the