As they were planning the 1896 Athens games, Michel Breal, a French linguist and historian came up with the idea of a long distance race. He even offered to come up with a silver cup to present to the winner. This idea took off and as the games approached it was being looked at as the premier event in the games. {The Marathon is my favorite event in the summer games, the downhill skiing my favorite in the winter games}

The Marathon was inspired by the story of the Greek runner Pheidippides who ran back to Athens to deliver the news of the Greek victory over the Persians at the Battle of Marathon. He arrived in Athens, yelled out ” Be Joyful-we won” and dropped over dead from exhaustion. It is up for debate whether this happened or not but its a great story.

The Marathon today is 42,195 meters–26 miles and 385 yards.  In 1896 this distance would be 40,000 meters.

On April 17th, 1896, 17 runners were involved in the first Marathon. Keep in mind they didn’t have the communications we have today. Those waiting in the stadium only got updates on who was winning the race by riders on horseback and bicycle coming to the stadium to report on who was leading. 100,000 spectators in the stadium believed an Australian Edwin Flack was leading as the runners approached the stadium.  Then the word reached the stadium that a Greek was leading and and the word spread, the crowd started yelling “A Greek, A Greek”  Spiridon Louis , a shepherd entered the stadium and won the race with a time of 2 hours 58 minutes and 50 seconds. The stadium went mad. Louis was treated as a hero

Merchants in Athens tried to shower him with all kinds of gifts, watches, jewelry, wine.. you name it they offered it to him-but he only accepted one offer- a horse and cart that was needed to transport water to his village.

The next day he showed up at the stadium to collect the silver cup he won and then quietly returned to his village. He never ran another race.  He faded from view until 1936’s Berlin Games when Adolf Hitler brought him to the games and honored him with an olive branch from Olympia, the birthplace of the Olympic Games. Louis would die in 1940.

The Olympic Games would return to Athens in 2004 and the main stadium in the Athens Olympic Sports Complex was named for Spiridon Louis as was the road running in front of it.

Just this April the Silver Cup that Michel Breal awarded Spiridon Louis auctioned off- and received a top bid of $860,000 the highest price ever given for any olympic memoriabilia. The Silver Cup is 6 inches high.

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