Content area
Full Text
Sir Christopher Chataway was a broadcaster and record-breaking athlete who set the pace for Roger Bannister's sub-four minute mile and later served as a government minister
Sir Christopher Chataway, who has died aged 82, was the athlete who paced Roger Bannister to the first sub-four minute mile, finishing second himself. He later served in the governments of Harold Macmillan, Lord Home and Edward Heath; was a pioneer of commercial broadcasting; and served as chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority.
Although "built all wrong for running" and fond of a post-race cigar, Chataway was a world-class competitor from the half-mile to the half-marathon, with a fearsome final kick. He broke the world 5,000 metres record; competed in the 1952 and 1956 Olympics; and in 1955 broke the four-minute barrier himself, finishing second to Laszlo Tabori at White City in 3 min 59.8 sec.
A "really fast mile" had been promised when the Amateur Athletics Association met Oxford University at Iffley Road on the blustery afternoon of May 6 1954 as Bannister, a medical student, set out to beat his British record of 4 mins 3.6 sec.
With Chris Brasher, Chataway set a cracking pace, recording 4 mins 7.2 sec. Bannister excelled with laps of 57.5 sec, 60.7, 62.3 and a final 58.9. As he collapsed through the tape, three timekeepers certified the result, then Norris McWhirter took the loud-hailer. Cheers drowned him out as he gave the time as "Three...". Bannister had shattered Gunder Haegg's world record by two seconds with a run of 3 mins 59.4.
For Chataway, the bridge from athletics to politics was television. The reader of ITN's first bulletin on October 11 1955, he was one of a cluster of contemporaries who became household names: Robin Day (with whom he shared ITN's debut), Ludovic Kennedy and Geoffrey Johnson Smith. Setting up commercial radio as Minister for Posts and Telecommunications, he would spend 12 years with the medium as chairman of LBC.
He was in the vanguard of social reform, co-sponsoring Humphry Berkeley's Bill to legalise homosexuality and telling for the Ayes in the 1964 vote to end capital punishment. As leader of the Inner London Education Committee, he upset grassroots Tories by letting comprehensive plans for seven boroughs go ahead, before...