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Canada remembers its first sub-four-minute miler

3:57 miler Dr. David George Bailey of London, Ont. dies at age 77

David George Bailey

Canadian Running is saddened to share the passing of Athletics Ontario Hall of Fame member and the first Canadian to run a sub-four-minute mile, Dr. David George Bailey, who died in his London, Ont. home at age 77 on Aug. 27.

Bailey distinguished himself as a pioneer in Canadian athletics, becoming Canada’s first sub-four-minute miler in a time of 3:59.1 in 1966. A year later, Bailey topped his mark with a 3:57.7 in Toronto.

Bailey was a member of nine Canadian track and field teams, competing at the World University Games in Budapest 1965 and Tokyo 1967; Commonwealth Games in Jamaica 1966; Pan American Games in Winnipeg 1967 and the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. He earned a bronze medal for Team Canada in the 1,500m at the 1967 Pan-American Games in Winnipeg.

Off the track, Bailey worked on a clinical pharmacology study investigating the relationship between a blood pressure lowering drug and alcohol. In 1991, he discovered the abnormal reaction between some medications and grapefruit juice. If you ever see a little sticker on your medicine bottle saying, “Don’t take this with grapefruit juice,” you can be sure to remember Dr. Bailey.

In 2016, Bailey was inducted into the Athletics Ontario Hall of Fame, and he is a two-time inductee into the University of Toronto Sports Hall of Fame (individually in 1998 and as a team member in 2003).

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