Bannister has Parkinson's disease

Almost 60 years to the day since becoming the first man to run a mile in under four minutes, Roger Bannister has revealed he is suffering from Parkinson's disease.

The 85-year-old Briton said he had been suffering with the degenerative nervous disease for three years, but only revealed it in a BBC radio interview marking the anniversary of his run in Oxford on May 6, 1954.

Bannister ran 3:59.4 on the Iffley Road track, now named after him, to break the four-minute barrier.

After a running career in which he also won a gold medal over one mile at the 1954 Commonwealth Games and the 1,500 metres at the European Championships in the same year, he became a neurologist.

He told BBC Radio Oxford: "I am having troubles with walking. Ironically it is a neurological disorder - Parkinson's." - Reuters.