Paul M. Krueger

1896 Summer Olympics: The Olympic marathon is run ending with the victory of Greek athlete Spyridon Louis.

---

ㅤThe men’s marathon was a special event introduced at the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens as the capstone of the athletics program. Seventeen athletes from five nations participated in this inaugural race, which was inspired by the legend of Pheidippides and the idea of a race from Marathon to Athens conceived by Michel Bréal. Prior to the Olympic event, Greece held two national qualifying races to select its runners. The first qualifier, held on March 22, 1896, was won by Charilaos Vasilakos, and the second, on April 5, 1896, was won by Ioannis Lavrentis. The length of the marathon at the 1896 Olympics was approximately 40 kilometers (25 miles).

ㅤThe Olympic marathon took place on April 10, 1896, with seventeen of the twenty-five athletes who traveled to Marathon starting the race. Notably, at least one woman, Stamata Revithi, was denied entry. Despite this, she ran the course independently the following day. In the race itself, after early leaders dropped out due to exhaustion, Greek runner Spyridon Louis demonstrated his endurance to take the lead and ultimately win the event in just under three hours. Fellow Greek runner Vasilakos finished second, and initially, Spyridon Belokas finished third, seemingly completing a Greek sweep, however Belokas was later disqualified after he was found to have covered part of the course of the race by carriage rather than on foot. Hungarian Gyula Kellner was ultimately awarded third place.