Dehydration, Exploitation and Rat Poison: The Story of the 1904 St. Louis Olympic Marathon
August 30, 1904. At the rather odd time of 3:03 pm, the president of the 1904 World’s Fair raises his right arm straight into the air and fires the starter’s pistol. The runners take off choking and coughing amidst a cloud of acrid dust. This is the start of the marathon of the 1904 St. Louis Olympic Games--the third running of the modern day Olympiad and the first ever held in the United States of America. On the day of the marathon temperatures soar into the upper 90’s and the high humidity makes the air feel more subtropical than midwestern. There are a few experienced and finely conditioned marathoners running that day, but not very many. Though over thirty athletes from half a dozen nations participate in the marathon of the third modern Olympiad most of them are downright amateurs without any form of training or past experience. In 1904 there were neither any qualifying events nor any physical or personal ...