Sir Roger Banister, CBE, a distinguished neurologist and a former English athlete, in 1954 became the first person to run the mile in under 4 minutes. He won the Gold medal in the Commonwealth Games in Vancouver. Sir Banister way back in 1971 delivered a talk on "Psychophysiology of Sports" in the British Council Student's Centre in London. He mentioned that interest in record breaking is universal, and it is a human 'mind body' problem. He related a story about Emil Zetopek, the great long-distance runner of Czechoslovakia.

>Zetopek had earlier won the Golds for 5000 and 10000 metre runs, but had never participated in the marathon (41.3 Km). In 1953 Helsinki Olympics while running the marathon when Zetopek was shoulder to shoulder to Jim Peters (the British long-distance runner who held the world record for the men's marathon), he whispered, "Peters I have not run the marathon earlier, but I feel if we have to make the mark, we ought to be going faster". Peters sped up and soon exhausted himself. In the end Zetopek won the race, and he was rightly nicknamed as the "Czech Locomotive" for his multiple Gold Medals.