So you think you can run?

As Mumbai runs the marathon today, Sunday MiD DAY takes a look at a race that has spawned reams of folklore worldwide

As Mumbai runs the marathon today, Sunday MiD DAY takes a look at a race that has spawned reams of folklore worldwide

The marathon's more unforgettable moments are not about world record timings or winners and losers. They are about heroic deeds, deceitful depths and plenty of laughs, somewhere in between.

Iillustrations/ satish acharya

Dorando die-hard
Barely had the Olympics begun, and they became a stage of high drama. At the 1908 Summer Olympics held in London, a pastry chef proved that life's more sterling moments are not about making the perfect puffed concoction.

At a time when even Olympic aspirants had to work outside for a living, Italian national Dorando Pietri, a pastry chef, had trained hard for the marathon. The London Olympics marathon measured 42.195 km (26.2 miles), the official full marathon distance.

There were 56 runners who started, including Pietri and fellow Italian Umberto Blasi. At the 39-km mark, a distance, when you have the marathon in your pocket, the earlier surge by Dorando started to take its toll. As he entered the stadium for the last lap, an exhausted Dorando took the wrong path. The race organisers re-directed him as 75,000 spectators watched the human drama anxiously.

Dorando's legs continued to buckle. He fell four times, and each time the organisers and officials helped him up. In the end, though dog-tired, he managed to finish the race in first place, practically being dragged over the finish line by officials. American Johnny Hayes came second. The American team immediately lodged a complaint against the help Dorando received. The complaint was accepted and Dorando was disqualified and removed from the final standings of the race.

There was some redemption for Dorando as Queen Alexandra gave him a gilded silver cup in recognition of his bravery. Reports state that several journalists in the stadium wrote moving accounts of the race. One stood out among them. It was a reporter called Arthur Conan Doyle.

Gender-Loving Scare
"I thought about how may preconceived notions would crumble when I trotted right along for 26 miles."u00a0--u00a0 Roberta Gibb (first woman to run the Boston marathon)u00a0 It seems laughable now. In an age when women athletes threaten to outnumber men at the Olympics, there were times, not too long ago, when women were barred from competing in the gruelling 42-km distance. Before 1972, women had been barred from competing in one of the most famous marathons in the worldu00a0-- the Boston Marathon.

In 1966, Roberta Gibb hid behind a bush at the start of the Boston Marathon, sneaking into the field and finishing the race in an unofficial time of 3:21:25. She was the first woman known to complete the arduous Boston course. Reports state Gibb was spurred on to compete because her race entry had been returned with a note saying women were not physically capable of running a marathon.

Then, in 1967, something even more dramatic happened at the Boston marathon. Race number 261 was assigned to someone with a rather unremarkable nameu00a0-- KV Switzer.u00a0

It was two miles into the race, when officials suddenly realised that Switzer was a woman. High drama ensued as race director Will Cloney and official Jock Semple tried to grab Switzer and let her out of the race. Yet Switzer's teammates fended them off (yeah, that's no way to treat a lady) and Switzer eventually finished the race after the race timers had stopped running, in 4:20.
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Photographs of race officials chasing after Switzer that appeared in the national papers the next day brought plenty of laughs. More seriously, it brought the issue of women and the marathon to the forefront. While Switzer said that the marathon was a personal challenge, they made huge political statements at the time. Like they say, the personal is the political.

In 1984, at the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, women competed in an Olympics marathon for the first time. American national Joan Benoit won that one.u00a0

Bizarre, by far
The marathon event at St Louis (USA) in the 1904 Olympic Games could be safely dubbed as the gift of the gaffes. First, a competitor called Fred Lorz from New York City, went across the finish line in a little over three hours, as the crowd roared in excitement.

The glory was short-lived.u00a0 Just as Lorz was about to accept his medal, officials learnt that Lorz had been spotted passing the halfway mark in an automobile! Lorz had been suffering from cramps, so he hitched a ride at the nine-mile point. He then rode in the vehicle for another 11 miles, at which point the car overheated and broke down. He waved at the spectators and fellow runners along the way.

Rejuvenated from his ride, he chose to run the rest of the race. Lorz was immediately banned for life from any future amateur competition; a ban that was lifted a year later.

hick, hick, hurrah
So, if Lorz did not win, who did? Thomas Hicks (a Briton running for the United States) was the first to cross the finish line legally. Yet, reserve those Hick, Hick, hurrahs. It is learnt that Hicks had received several doses of strychnine sulfate (this is best known as a poison, but in the early days, it was sometimes used in small doses in medicines as a stimulant, and to cure stomach ailments) mixed with brandy from his trainers. He was supported by his trainers when he crossed the finish line, but is still considered the winner. Hicks had to be carried off the track, and would have possibly died in the stadium, had he not been treated by a group of doctors.

hungry runner
The madness at the St Lois marathon did not stop at Hicks. A Cuban postman, Felix Carbajal, joined the marathon, arriving at the last minute. He had to run in street clothes that he cut around his legs to make them look like shorts. He stopped off in an orchard en route to snack on apples, which turned out to be rotten. The rotten apples forced him to lie down and take a nap. Despite falling ill to apples, he finished in fourth place. Research indicates that Hicks lived in poverty his entire life before dying in Cuba (Havana). A Spanish book, 'Felix Carvajal, corredor de marat n' was written on his life. Cuba could have made a commemorative stamp on this heroic postman, perhaps.u00a0u00a0
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Stop 'n' go
A Brazilian runner was attacked by a spectator while leading the marathon at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. Vanderlei de Lima eventually managed a bronze after being shoved into the crowd by a former Irish priest, Cornelius Horan, during the latter stage of the race. Horan, 57, was arrested after being seized by other spectators. He was later slapped a 12-month jail sentence and a 3,000 Euro fine, and barred from all sports events.

Lima, though, lost his appeal for the gold medal to the Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS). The Brazilian Olympic Committee (COB) and de Lima had argued in their appeal to CAS last September, that the gold would remedy the damage suffered by the runner. The CAS said in a statement on its ruling that it, "had no power in this instance to remedy his legitimate frustration." The Brazilians had requested two gold medals to be awarded as they did not want eventual winner Stefano Baldini of Italy and second placed American Mebrahtom Keflezighi to lose their medals.

At the closing ceremony, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) awarded de Lima an honorary medal named after the founder of the modern Games, Pierre De Coubertin, in recognition of his "exceptional demonstration of fair play and Olympic values". Small solace for de Lima after that Horan-dous occurrence.