Johnny Hayes
July 24, 1908: The marathon is held at the Olympic Games in London. It's not as crazy a story as the one 4 years earlier in St. Louis. That one was crazy from beginning to end. This one was crazy only at the end.
The marathon was established for the 1st modern Olympic Games, held in 1896 in Athens, Greece. It celebrated the Battle of Marathon, in 490 BC, when a united army from several Greek city-states defeated a larger force from the Persian Empire, ending that empire's best chance at conquering Greece.
Legend has it that a courier named Pheidippides ran from Marathon all the way back to Athens, and told the governing archons, "Joy, we win!" Or, depending on your translation, "Rejoice, we conquer!" And then he dropped dead. The exact date of the battle has been lost to history, but it's thought to have been in August or September, and Greece is in the Mediterranean. Whether or not Pheidippides was just a courier, or a soldier wearing armor for the entire hot run, depends on who's telling the story.
The distance from Marathon to Athens is about 25 miles, and a statue of Pheidippides now stands on the highway between the cities, at about the halfway mark.
For the 1908 Olympics in London, the race started at Windsor Castle, home of King Edward VII, and ended at the King's box at the White City Stadium, at Shepherd's Bush in West London. That distance was 26 miles, 385 yards, and that has been the official distance for marathon races ever since.
The White City Stadium. The original Wembley was 15 years away.
These days, several American cities have marathons, with the most famous being in Boston on the 3rd Monday in April, and in New York on the 1st Sunday in November.
The 1908 Olympic Marathon began with 73 runners, officially from 17 countries: 12 each from America, host Great Britain and Canada; 7 from Sweden; 5 each from the Netherlands and South Africa; 3 each from "Australasia" (a combined Australia and New Zealand team), Germany and Italy; 2 each from Austria (1 was actually Czech), Denmark and Greece; and 1 each from Belgium, Bohemia (now part of Czechia, then part of the Austrian Empire, but for some reason competing separately from Austria), Finland (then part of the Russian Empire but competing separately), Hungary (also part of the Austrian Empire but competing separately) and Russia.
One of the American runners was Fred Lorz, who cheated to win the 1904 Olympic Marathon in St. Louis, got caught, and was disqualified. This time, he neither finished nor attempted to fool people into thinking he had. Of the 73 runners, only 27 finished.
Thomas Jack of Britain led at the 4-mile and 5-mile marks, but did not finish the race. Frederick Lord -- not to be confused with Fred Lorz -- of Britain was the leader at mile markers 6 through 14, but tailed off, and finished 15th.
Charles Hefferon was born in Newbury, Berkshire, England and raised in Canada, then fought in the Boer War, and stayed in South Africa thereafter, and competed for South Africa. He led the race from miles 15 to 24. At each marker, word was relayed to the stadium, and announced over the loudspeaker. The pro-British crowd may not have known that Hefferon was born in England, but they knew that South Africa was part of the British Empire, and they cheered.
But just before getting to mile 24, Hefferon made a key mistake. A bystander offered him a drink, and he took it. It was champagne. It was nice and cool, but it gave him a cramp. He slowed down, and was overtaken by Dorando Pietri of Italy.
Pietri was a 22-year-old candymaker from Correggio, in Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy. Despite coming from a warm-weather country, he made the mistake of not getting hydrated enough. When he entered the stadium, needing only to complete a full lap, he ran the wrong way. Officials showed him which way to go, which was legal.
Then, with 75,000 fans looking on, he fell. If he had gotten up on his own, it would have been fine. But officials helped him up. That should have disqualified him immediately. In all, he fell 5 times, and was helped up all 5 times. Among the officials helping him was a physician, who also dabbled in writing: Dr. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Dorando Pietri, helped by unwitting officials
Pietri -- usually identified by his first name, Dorando -- finished 1st, with a time of 2 hours, 54 minutes and 46 seconds. The last 350 meters required 10 minutes. He almost didn't finish 1st, anyway: Johnny Hayes, a 22-year-old New Yorker who worked in the sporting goods department at Bloomingdale's department store, finished in 2:55:18, only 32 seconds behind Pietri. Hefferon came in 3rd, a minute and 20 seconds behind Pietri.
The Italian and American flags were run up the poles, as was the Union Jack, standing in for a flag for South Africa. The public address announcer proclaimed, "The winner, Dorando of Italy! Second, Hayes of the United States! Third, Hefferon of South Africa!"
Hearing this, American officials went to the race's overseers, and pointed out that Pietri needed help to finish the race. Their claim was upheld, and Pietri was disqualified. Hayes was awarded the Gold Medal, Hefferon the Silver, and the Bronze went to American runner Joseph Forshaw.
Unlike Fred Lorz 4 years earlier, Pietri had not intentionally cheated. Although the world knew he hadn't won fairly, he gained a great deal of sympathy. Queen Alexandra, King Edward's wife, gave him a gold cup the next day. In a column for the Daily Mail, Conan Doyle wrote, "The Italian's great performance can never be effaced from our record of sport, be the decision of the judges what it may." He also proposed that the Mail raise money to buy him his own bakery back home. Conan Doyle himself contributed the 1st £5 pounds, and £300 was raised -- in today's money, about £32,000, or $43,200.
Pietri and Hayes turned professional, and competed against each other many times over the next few years. On November 25, 1908, and again on March 15, 1909, the 2nd Madison Square Garden hosted a race between them, and Pietri won both of them.
Pietri went back home, ran his bakery, and then ran a hotel with his brother. He died in 1942, at the age of 56. Hayes was promoted to the head of the sporting goods department at Bloomingdale's, coached U.S. runners at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, and became a phys ed teacher in Englewood, Bergen County, New Jersey, where he died in 1965, at 79.
In 1984, the Olympics held a women's marathon for the 1st time, in 86-degree heat in Los Angeles. American runner Joan Benoit Samuelson won it. But the indelible memory is that of Gabriela Andersen-Schiess of Switzerland. There were 5 official water stations along the route, but "Gaby" had missed the last one, and was severely dehydrated by the time she got onto the track at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
She appeared to be in no shape to continue. Her left arm hung immobile at her side. Her right leg was stiff. Medical personnel came over to help her. But she waved them away, her mind still clear enough to know that she would be disqualified if they did. Maybe she knew the story of Dorando Pietri. (Italy and Switzerland do border each other.) In any case, she wanted to be officially recorded as having properly finished the race.
It took her 5 minutes and 44 seconds to complete the 400-meter lap around the Coliseum. But she made it, fully legally, and got a standing ovation from a crowd of over 90,000. She finished 37th out of 44, with a time of 2 hours, 48 minutes and 42 seconds -- faster than either Johnny Hayes or Dorando Pietri ran the same distance, albeit not on the same course, 76 years earlier.
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July 24, 1908 was a Friday. The day saw the playing of 4 games in what would later be called Major League Baseball:
* The New York Giants beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 2-1 at the Polo Grounds.
* The Brooklyn Superbas (they became the Dodgers in 1911) lost to the Chicago Cubs, 2-1 in 11 innings at Washington Park in Brooklyn.
* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Boston Doves (they became the Braves in 1912), 3-2 at the South End Grounds in Boston.
* And the Detroit Tigers beat the Cleveland Naps (they became the Indians in 1915), 4-0 at League Park in Cleveland.
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