What was marathon

The Marathon as we know it today is over years old, but there have been forms of long distance races since the time of the ancient Egyptians. The Marathon has been an Olympic distance since the modern Olympics started in , but nothing like it was ever seen in the ancient Olympics, run from BC to AD. The longest race then was less than 5km. The Marathon was adopted as a central part of the modern Olympic programme, and takes place in countless cities all over the world today, purely because of its popular appeal to the imagination.

Humans had once run distances far greater than a marathon. He would run his prey ragged. The hunted animal would bound away to apparent safety, only for the dogged hunter to turn up alongside again.

This would go on until the animal, squandering its energy in nervous bursts, was rendered too exhausted to resist. 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.

The three foreign middle-distance runners lasted surprisingly well, retiring at 23km, 32km and 37km. Spridon Louis had taken the lead from the last of these, the Australian Edwin Flack, at about 33km.

The starter, one Colonel Papadiamantopoulos, who seemed to be acting as race referee, then rode ahead to inform the waiting crowd in the stadium. For decades, marathons were only open to male athletes. In , an estimated 25, runners finished marathons in the United States; by , the estimated number of competitors who completed a But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you.

Live TV. This Day In History. The marathon is the final athletic race in the Olympics, usually finishing in the stadium. The now standard length of 26 miles and yards was originally run in the Games in London. Bronze figure of a running girl. Women were excluded from competing in the Olympic Games, but they did have a festival of their own at Olympia.

This was the Heraia, or games held in honour of Hera. These were also celebrated every four years, but there was only one type of event — the foot-race. It was divided into three separate contests for girls of different age groups. The winners were given crowns of olive like the Olympic victors, and they also received a portion of a heifer sacrificed to Hera.

Just as the Olympic prize-winners were allowed to dedicate statues of themselves, so the girl victors were granted the privilege of setting up their images in the temple of Hera, but these were paintings and not statues. At Sparta, girls seem always to have undertaken the same athletic exercises as boys, because tough, strong mothers were believed to produce good Spartan soldiers.

The bronze statuette of a girl runner above is probably from Sparta, where women were also expected to take part in athletics. Map Data.