Commonwealth Games - Men's 1500.

[rasb]

I was perusing some old video tape this evening (yes, there once was video tape), in this case the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh.
I was struck by the following piece of information from CBC's Don Wittman (rip). Here are the winners of the Commonwealth 1500 from 1954 to 1986:
* Bannister, Elliot, Snell, Keino, Keino, Bayi, Moorcroft, Cram, Cram...
Wow !!!

[tandfman]

The first four of those nine races were miles, not 1500's.

How about the of runners who were beaten in those races--they included Landy, John Walker (twice), Foster, Quax, Jipcho, and Boit.

[jeremyp]

The Bannister/Landy race was the one I remember. Bannister had run first sub 4, then Landy broke the record, and the two met in Vancouver. I was living, as a teen, in GB at the time and they had it live on Radio. Landy took it out hard and Bannister was 10-15m back at one time, until the last lap when he closed the gap. Bannister blew by Landy at the last turn.

A lot was made of Landy looking "the wrong way." But as Landy himself admitted: " When I saw Roger I knew it was curtains." As you can see on Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP_NzZP_LK0

Landy couldn't have beaten Bannister on the straight. Also on this tape notice the guy who starts with a sprinetr's stance! And the inane interview questions are priceless.

Speaking of Commonwealth games miles: even though Elliot won easily the race that I remember was the 800 where he ran 50.5 for last 400 to beat Hewson (who had beaten him earlier). Later that year I was lucky enough to see Elliot run the second fastest mile in 3.55.4 beating European Champ Hewson easily.

[dj]

For another pair of great names, add the 1934 Games with Jack Lovelock beating Sydney Wooderson.

[AS]

The missing part of that Landy-Bannister tale is that Landy cut his foot very badly a day or two before (I think from treading on a broken camera bulb in the games village) and was running in considerable pain...

[Per Andersen]

Speaking of Commonwealth games miles: even though Elliot won easily the race that I remember was the 800 where he ran 50.5 for last 400 to beat Hewson (who had beaten him earlier). Later that year I was lucky enough to see Elliot run the second fastest mile in 3.55.4 beating European Champ Hewson easily.

That 1/2 mile victory over Hewson sticks in my mind too. So impressive considering what happened a few weeks earlier.
Then a few days after the race in London you saw, Herb was off to Oslo for his last European race that year. In Oslo I saw him pull Norwegian champ Hammarsland to a Norwegian record in the 1500, 3.39.8 which was at the time the 4th fastest time ever.
Elliott was pretty worn out at that point but still ran 3.37.4

[Vault-emort]

Perhaps not in the calibre of the names the OP's list, but an amazing Commonwealth/Empire champ nonetheless:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Alford