The Bizarre, Booby-Trapped Marathon of 1904

The Twentieth Century commenced with a crazy contest coined an Olympic event, but conducted with charming competition converted to characteristic chaos. As athletes assembled in August, all argued against all almost accidentally, as all almost alluded to abject abandonment. This is the chronicle of the St. Louis Olympic Marathon, a race where cheating, poison, and produce defined the podium.

A Recipe for Disaster

The 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis, Missouri, hosted one of the most infamously ill-conceived races ever run.

 * The Course: The 24.85-mile course was run on open, dusty dirt roads during the hottest part of an August day, with temperatures soaring over 90°F (32°C). The runners had to contend with cars, horses, and pedestrians.

 * "Purposeful Dehydration": The race director, James Sullivan, was a proponent of the bizarre and ultimately dangerous theory of "purposeful dehydration." As a result, there was only one official water station on the entire course (near the 12-mile mark).

 * The Attrition: Of the 32 runners who started, only 14 managed to finish, with many collapsing from heat, exhaustion, and the intense dust kicked up by the accompanying motor vehicles.

The Most Bizarre Incidents

The few who finished did so under the most extraordinary and frankly illegal circumstances:

 * The Cheater (Fred Lorz): The first man to cross the finish line was American Fred Lorz. He was greeted with cheers, and Alice Roosevelt, daughter of the President, was about to crown him champion. However, it was revealed that Lorz had dropped out of the race nine miles in, hitched a ride in a car for 11 miles to retrieve his clothes, and then jumped back into the race when the car broke down, jogging the final five miles. He was disqualified.

 * The "Winner" (Thomas Hicks): The actual winner, Thomas Hicks, was near collapse for the latter part of the race. His trainers administered him a horrifying cocktail to keep him moving: egg whites, a shot of brandy, and small doses of strychnine (a highly poisonous substance used as rat poison, which was then sometimes used as a stimulant). Hicks was hallucinating and had to be carried over the finish line by his handlers, becoming the winner with the slowest time in Olympic history.

 * The Thief (Félix Carvajal): The Cuban postman Félix Carvajal, who hitchhiked to St. Louis and ran in his heavy street clothes (cut at the knee), stopped mid-race to steal two peaches from a spectator. He later stopped at an orchard to eat rotten apples, which gave him severe stomach cramps and forced him to take a nap on the side of the road. Despite all this, he still finished fourth.

 * The Dog Victim: A South African runner, Len Taunyane, was reportedly chased a mile off course by a pack of feral dogs.

The entire event was a shocking display of mismanagement that could have been fatal, all for the sake of civilian sport.

We wonder why whining was warranted when we witness wackiness. A race rendered ridiculous remains remarkable regardless.

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