KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Only a year after Englishman Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile in May 1954, crashing through an invisible, tantalizing and once-immovable barrier, three men did the same in a single race. Some 1,500 would eventually follow.
Sports history, and history in general, offers plenty of examples of these dynamics in the wake of such breakthroughs. And, sure, you could debate the causality because of other factors at play.
Just the same, this one came to offer a certain distinct context.
