Like many of them in their thirties, I recently felt a strong urge to tell my friends and colleagues that I’m thinking of running a marathon. Believe me, I’m not happy. I’m not very runner. I was told during a riding lesson that I had “a long bust and rather short legs”. (On second thought, that sounds a lot like bullying, and now I wish I hadn’t left it such a glowing review on AirBnB Experiences.)
While doing some cursory research, I came across the incredible story of the 1904 Olympic marathon. failure, incompetence and stupidity.
(I should preface all of this by saying I’m not a historian. I’m just a comedian from New Zealand who knows nothing about conducting proper historical research, so please don’t sue me or do not copy and paste this article into your thesis.)
The 1904 Olympics were originally scheduled to be held in Chicago. Unfortunately for Chicago, St. Louis stole them. St Louis officials feared that the event in Chicago would draw crowds away from the World’s Fair that St Louis was hosting at the same time, and so bullied and harassed the International Olympic Committee into putting the Games back. Well done, St. Louis.
Once they had the Olympics, however, St Louis didn’t seem to know quite what to do with it. The 1904 Games were held sporadically over a five-month period, and only about 60 competitors from outside North America showed up. There were moments of triumph (a man with a wooden leg won six medals in gymnastics), but more often it was a mess (the owner of an educational farm brought his cattle to the lake where were taking place in the water polo finals, causing some of the players to contract typhus). The marathon was the biggest disaster of all.
It started with the heat. On Tuesday, August 30, 1904, the temperature in St. Louis reached 33 degrees Celsius, with 90% humidity. It might not have been so bad if it hadn’t been for the fact that the organizers had chosen this race to test a crackpot theory that dehydration was beneficial for runners. They would not provide water to the athletes.
Thirty-two runners started the race, which led from Francis Field to the sweltering countryside. According to a race official, the course was “one of the most difficult that a human being has ever been asked to run”. The unpaved roads were strewn with rocks, winding up huge hills in the scorching heat. Almost immediately, the riders were enveloped in clouds of dust kicked up by the service cars driving alongside them. Athletes choked and vomited on dust and it also blinded drivers, causing a car to crash into a ditch. A runner swallowed so much dust that he almost died. The race was so brutal that more than a dozen runners gave up before the halfway point, even before meeting the wild dogs…
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