Stopwatch used to time 1954 record-breaking mile run fetched $34K at auction

By Daniel Jae Webb via SWNS

The stopwatch used to time Roger Bannister's record-breaking sub-four-minute-mile run in 1954 has fetched a whopping £26K ( $34k) at auction.

The watch - which no longer works - was used by founder of the Guinness Book of Records, Norris McWhirter, to unofficially time the record.

The Nero Lemania was up for grabs at an auction held by Dominic Winter Auctioneers on December 16.

It had a guide price of £3,000-£5,000 ( $3,967- $6,612) but the stopwatch preserved in an old pigskin leather case went for over five times that.

With the watch comes seven photographs of Bannister, including one of him crossing the line at Iffley Road, Oxford, May 5, 1954.

There's even two autographed letters signed from Roger Bannister to Norris McWhirter - and McWhirter's replies.

On the day of Bannister's record, there were five official timekeepers: W.C.A. Findlay, C.S. Hill, R.G. Hudson, L.R. Richards and W.J. Burfitt, of which Hill and Burfitt's stopwatches have previously been sold at auction.

After the race McWhirter famously declared: “Ladies and gentlemen, here is the result of Event Number Nine, the One Mile. First, Number Forty-One, R.G. Bannister, of the Amateur Athletic Association, and formerly of Exeter and Merton Colleges, with a time which is a new meeting and track record, and which, subject to ratification, will be a new English native, British national, British All-Comers', European, British Empire and world record. The time is three [at which point the rest of the announcement was lost in the roar of the 1,200 crowd] minutes, fifty-nine point four seconds."