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AFTER RUNNING THE 26
MILES FROM THE SITE OF
THE BATTLE
– CALLED MARATHON -
PHEIDIPPIDES DIES AFTER
CRYING OUT
“NIKE!” OR “WE WON!”.
26 | Touchline
how marathons work
T
he New York Marathon winds through all of its five
boroughs; sweating runners pushing themselves
to the line under the shadow of some of the world’s
most iconic buildings. Scheduled for this month, the
marathon draws plenty of attention and creates a vibrant
collage in this famous and multicultural city.
Marathons seem to draw even neutrals into the streets, where
they can join in the community spirit and lift the morale of the
runners by clapping or dishing out water. Perhaps they are
popular because they reject the direct combat of most sports,
or perhaps because they are inclusive like no other event…
anyone can compete.
Or perhaps New York – just like Boston or Sydney or Istanbul
- loves the marathon because it
embodies a spirit that we like to
think embodies us all: determined,
committed, egalitarian.
The marathon has its roots in Ancient
Greece. But much like democracy
and philosophy, the marathon as
we experience it today is more
about what we believe the ancient
world should have been than what it
actually was.
The invention of the marathon is
traditionally presented as an east
versus west narrative. In 490BC, the tiny yet vibrant Greek
peninsula is attacked by the Persian Empire; its massive,
despotic neighbour. Democracy and scientific empiricism are
about to be crushed by this authoritarian monolith.
A tiny Athenian force resisted the much larger foe and sends
them back into the sea. A professional runner, Pheidippides, is
sent to inform the Athenians, waiting breathlessly in the city,
that they had carried the day. After running the 26 miles from
the site of the battle –called Marathon- Pheidippides dies after
crying out “Nike!” or “We won!”.
A very cool way to die, though a little pointless. Surely getting
the news a few hours later would have been better than poor
Pheidippides dying.
But without the death, the story may not have enjoyed the
pathos that managed to carry it into the modern age. Popular
imagination would have the run commemorated as one of the
great Olympic sports. But not so. The marathon never featured
in the ancient Olympics, though they did include running races.
This is probably due to the fact that the story of Pheiddipides
probably didn’t happen. Herodotus has him running much
further to seek help from the Spartans, which would be a much
more useful reason for his death. But in this version he also
meets the goat-headed god Pan, so this is unlikely too.
Marathon does not come to us as a re-adopted Olympic sport,
but from a poem by Robert Browning. Mining for noble and
pathetic deaths, Browning came across the story in a fragment
by Lucian.
The founders of the modern Olympics
liked the sound of a man running to
the edge of his stamina to report
the defeat of a foreign enemy, and
dropped the long-range race directly
into the Athens games of 1896.
Distance was easy to determine given
the context, so the first Olympic
marathon followed the original route.
It was a good year for the Greeks, as
they came in first, second and third.
The winner was Spiridon Louis, a
postman, who ran the 24.85 miles in
2 hours, 58 minutes and 50 seconds.
The third place getter was disqualified for using a carriage part
of the way.
And so began a sport that grabbed the imagination
immediately, even though the rules took a bit longer.
A year after the first Olympics, Boston hosted a marathon that
would become an annual event. Marathons were becoming
synonymous with endeavour and internationalism.
Nineteen-hundred-and-four saw the race wobble badly. The
St Louis Olympics hosted a marathon which was so badly
organised and so ridiculous that it almost got the event binned.
A
LONG
AND
WIND ING
H I S TORY :
By Timothy Mottram
HOW
MARATHONS
WORK