Roger Bannister's sub-four-minute mile in 1954 has been celebrated, both at the time and subsequently, as the epitome of amateur athletic achievement. Such an assessment, however, relies on a rather narrow and unsatisfactory definition of amateurism. This essay draws on the work of Pierre Bourdieu to identify various forms of immaterial capital on which Bannister was able to draw or which he gained access to as a result of his athletic prowess. It argues that he was able to convert the symbolic capital that he earned as a champion miler into other forms of capital on which he has drawn and continues to draw in his subsequent career. Defining the rewards that an athlete might gain in this fashion offers a new way of interrogating amateurism generally.