The third man to break four minutes for the mile, Laszlo Tabori has died at 86

Hungary’s Laszlo Tabori, who held the 1500m world record in the 1950s, died on Wednesday, May 23 at the age of 86. Born in Kosice in 1931, Tabori was part of the all-conquering Honved Budapest club. Under the guidance of legendary coach Mihaly Igloi, Tabori enjoyed a rapid rise to international success. One of Tabori’s first big achievements came when he and training partners Istvan Rozsavolgyi, Ferenc Mikes and Sandor Iharos broke the 4x1500m world record in Budapest in 1954. He improved significantly in 1955 and became the third man in history to run a sub-four-minute mile, clocking 3:59.0 in London on May 28.  In Oslo later that year, Tabori clocked 3:40.8 to equal the world 1500m record that had been set two months earlier by his training partner, Iharos. Denmark’s Gunnar Nielsen finished a close second to Tabori and was given the same time, meaning three men shared the world record. Tabori set his third world record at the end of 1955 when he once again teamed up with his same three training partners, this time running in a slightly different order, to take 6.4 seconds off their own world 4x1500m record.

posted Friday May 25th