A compassionate official, finally helped the semiconscious runner across the finish line. After the event, the story was on the media for days. Some even reported Pietri had died in the hospital after the race. This sensational finish helped the marathon fix itself in the imagination of the crowds as THE endurance race, even though it was dangerous to run. This helped spread the word about marathon running more than anything else. Unfortunately, because of the help he had received, the Italian runner was disqualified and Johnnie Hayes was declared winner.
The IAAF never officially explained why they had chosen 26 miles and yards as the official distance for the marathon in Jean-Loup Fenaux. The official distance for a marathon is The distance from the entrance of the stadium to the Royal Box was yards. The official report, however, falsely calculated the conversion, listing it as To make it comparable, the rematch, which took place between Hayes and Pietri after the Olympic Games, was also run on a course based upon the London measurements of This then served as a quasi-standard for the marathon course, which some marathon organisers followed from then on.
With the founding of the IAAF in Berlin in , a regulations commission was established, which was to create a draft for the athletics program for the IOC session in Lyon in Learn More Customer Login. By Karen Janos For Active. Karen Janos Karen Janos is a freelance writer who took up running at age 36 and never looked back. She has completed the New York City Marathon twice and many other shorter road races as well.
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To save your home and search preferences Join Active or Sign In. Such obvious purpose to running was undermined as weaponry became more sophisticated, and humans able to kill at remote distance. In Egyptian times running was prized as a military skill. King Taharka instituted a long distance race specifically to keep his army up to scratch. The most accomplished runners, both within the military and in civilian society, served as messengers up to the beginning of the nineteenth century and, over rough country, were better than a horse.
The tale upon which the modern Olympic Marathon rests is the mythic run of Pheidippides from Marathon to Athens. He was a professional messenger and, in BC, is supposed to have brought a message from the plains of Marathon, where the Greek Army had just won a crucial battle against the invading Persian Army of General Datis. He did this, and no more, dropping dead with the delivery. There are many variations of this story, most of them more plausible than this version.
The Greeks may have been victorious, but the battle had not been conclusive, as the rest of the Greek Army was marching towards Athens to forestall a Persian landing much closer to the city. The most contemporaneous historian, Herodotus, wrote 50 years later that Pheidippides had been sent from Athens to Sparta, before the battle, to request help. The Spartathlon race, which is held today over a distance of km, commemorates this slightly more likely version of events.
De Coubertin was a Frenchman, who had grown up at a time of national shame. Trounced in the Franco-Prussian War, the French had lost national territory, been forced to pay reparations and forbidden a national army while Prussian troops occupied the country.
There followed a civil war which further weakened French national standing. On a tour of Britain he met William Brookes, founder of the Much Wenlock Olympic Society, which had already held its inaugural event in , followed up in and De Coubertin attempted both to make sport compulsory in French schools and to promote an international sporting festival also based upon the ancient Olympics. He launched his Olympic campaign in , and two years later formed the International Olympic Committee at the Sorbonne.
The delegates agreed to promote the first modern Olympics in in Athens, and subsequently at intervals of four years. One of the delegates was Michel Breal, who argued for a long-distance race as one of the events, and dusted off the hoary old story of Pheidippides in support. As has happened so often since, the authorities saw the Olympics as a means by which to galvanise national feeling. The Royal Family became involved and contributions from the Greek diaspora poured in.
Vast sums were expended in building a marble replica of the stadium at Olympia, and the first Olympic Marathon was run from Marathon Bridge to this stadium in Athens, over a distance of 40km. In the months leading up to the Olympic race there were several attempts to run this course. In February two runners departed from Athens and completed the distance but one of them, foreshadowing many similar instances, took a ride for part of the way.
A month before the Olympic race a Greek Championship event was held, in which 11 competitors ran from Marathon to Athens. This was the first ever Marathon race. Two weeks later there was another, billed as an official trial and attracting 38 entrants. The winner recorded , and a water-carrier named Spiridon Louis finished fifth in On a separate occasion at that time two women, Melpomene and Stamathis Rovithi, were also reported to have run from Marathon to Athens.
Eighteen men lined up at the start of the first Olympic Marathon on 10 April Of the four foreign runners only Gyula Kellner, a Hungarian, had run the distance before as a time trial. The three others had run in the middle distances at the Games and were chancing to little more than luck that they would stay the course.
The Greek organisers seemed better prepared, and had already made some arrangements which remain as standard practice to this day: refreshment stations were dotted along the course, a cavalry officer acted as a lead vehicle and soldiers were used as race marshals to keep the public off the course and assist stricken competitors.
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