The Marathon: A Historical Drama For Everyone

THE MARATHON: A HISTORICAL
DRAMA FOR EVERYONE
The plain of marathon was the site of a battle between the athenians and the persians in 490 B.C. It was won by the greek general Miltiades, and thatwould probably be the end of the story if a messenger had not run the distance from Marathon to Athens report the news of his victory -and dramatically fallen down dead after giving his message.
Whenthe modern Olympic Games were reintroduced in 1896-2,700 years after their original model-the messenger's run was commemorated with a long-distance race named "the Marathon" in his honor. Thosegames, like many since, were dominated by U.S. track athletes. There was, however, one notable exception to this trend: the marathon was won by an unknown shepherd-from Greece. and that was the first, andso far the only, olympic gold medal in modern track and field history won by a Greek.
Drama has continued to attends the Olympic marathon. In the 1908 Games in London, an Italian runner wasdisqualified after entering the stadium in first place. unfortunately, he was practically unconscious and turned in the wrong direction round the track. sympathetic officials helped hilm, but they failed torealize that this would lead to his automatic disqualificaton. Nevertheless, he became the great hero of those Games and received a special medal from the King of England for his courage.
Thisincident was recalled 76 years later, in the first women's Olympic marathon, in Los Angeles, when a swiss woman staggered around the stadium track almost unconscious, with officials trying to decide whetherto help her or not, an with hundreds of millions of TV vierwers watching their dilemma.
Women running the marathon ? it would have surprised the ancient greeks, but experts say that women arephysiologically well-adjusted to long-distance race. in fact, they may be better than men at very long ones. in most marathons today, women and men run in the same race and the best women beat all but a...