Marathons

MARATHONS

MARATHONS. The long-distance foot race known as the marathon is named after the celebrated Athenian victory over Persian invaders near the Bay of Marathon in Greece in 490 b.c. It commemorates the feat of the Greek soldier who ran twenty-five miles from the battle-field to Athens with tidings of the victory, only to die of exhaustion. A marathon was incorporated into the Olympic Games when the modern series began in Athens in 1896 and has retained an important place in them. The first victor was a Greek, Spiridon Loues, who won in two hours, fifty-eight minutes, and fifty seconds. A year later, the Boston Marathon was established and is held annually on Patriots' Day; by the 1990s, it was attracting 10,000 competitors. The New York Marathon, founded in 1970 by Fred Lebow, head of the New York Road Runners Club, draws about 25,000 entrants each year. The length of the marathon was fixed at twenty-six miles, three hundred eighty-five yards in 1908 when the British Olympic Committee determined that the race should commence at Windsor Castle and finish in front of the royal box at Shepherds Bush in London. Although no official records of Marathons are kept because the courses are of varied difficulty, by 1995 the fastest recorded times were about two hours and seven minutes for a man and about two hours and twenty minutes for a woman. Violet Percy of Great Britain became the first woman to officially enter a marathon—the London Marathon—in 1926. In 1970, the Road Runners Club of america organized the first championship marathon for women, although it was not until 1984 that a women's race was included in the Olympic Games. In 1970, two women in the New York Marathon became the first to break three hours.

Marathons grew in popularity in the United States after Frank Shorter won the marathon in the 1972 Olympic Games. The New York Marathon began to be televised in 1979, and the following year, after fraudulent finishes in both Boston and New York by Rosie Ruiz, videotaping became routine. Triathlons, such as the Iron-man Triathlon World Championship held on the Kona coast of Hawaii that began in 1978, incorporate a marathon, a 2.4-mile swim, and a 112-mile bicycle race. A related sporting challenge is the endurance marathon, in which the length of uninterrupted participation is the determining factor in any number of activities, from tiddlywinks to trampolining.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Higdon, Hal. Boston: A Century of Running: Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Boston Athletic Association Marathon. Emmaus, Pa.: Rodale Press, 1995.

Robert Garland / a. r.

See also Olympic Games, American Participation in ; Sports .