Stuff You Should Know - The Strange Story of the 1904 Olympic Marathon

Episode Date: August 27, 2024

The Olympic marathon of 1904 is an incredible story filled with wacky characters, cheating, heat and humidity, dust and dirt, and oh yeah, a few actual qualified athletes. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For so many people living with an autoimmune condition like myasthenia gravis or chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, the emotional toll can be as real as the physical symptoms. That's why in an all new season of Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition from Ruby Studio and Argenics, host Martine Hackett gets to the heart of the emotional journey for individuals living with these conditions. To find community and inspiration on your journey, listen now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. For decades, the mafia had New York City in a stranglehold with law enforcement seemingly powerless to intervene. It uses terror to extort people. But the murder of Carmichael Lonti marked the beginning of the end. It sent the message that we can prosecute these people. Listen to Law and Order Criminal Justice System on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too. And we're on a sprint to retirement. You're on Stuff You Should Know. A marathon sprint. Yeah, unfortunately, it. A marathon sprint. Yeah, unfortunately it's a marathon sprint.

Never ending, ceaseless, ultrathon, marathon of all time. You know, this was another listener suggestion. I feel like those have been rolling in lately with a lot of good suggestions. And this was something I had not heard of, the story of the 1904 Marathon and this comes to us from Peter Fitzgibbon. Yeah and thanks to Dave for helping us out with this one too. Yeah thanks all around. Peter Fitzgibbon, what a great name. Agreed. So thanks a lot Peter because this is a really interesting story and I hadn't heard anything about it either but there was

And I hadn't heard anything about it either, but there was, um, what's widely considered as the hardest, worst, most difficult marathon ever run. Marathon, not ultrathon. Now again, I'm, I'm just specifically talking about marathons. And the, the mind bending part of it is it wasn't even an official marathon length. It was two miles shorter than what we consider

marathons today. And this is still considered the hardest. And it wasn't because some racing genius came up with the perfect, difficult marathon course. No, it was because the people involved had no idea what they were doing. And this was one of the first marathons in the modern era, in the modern Olympics.

It was actually the third one. That's right. If, you know, there was no marathon in the OG ancient games, I think a lot of people think that maybe there was because of the great story of how the marathon came to be. But that would happen much later. There was a gentleman named Michel Brielle, who is a 19th century French linguist, and he loved Greek mythology, happened to be good friends with the founder of the modern Olympics, a guy named Baron Pierre de Corbetin.

And he went to that first IOC meeting, Brielle did, and he said, hey, guys, we've all heard the story of the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC when the Greeks fought the Persians and the Greeks won and very famously sent Phidippides, the messenger, to run 24 miles back to Athens to say, we won, we won. And then when he did that, immediately dropped dead. Like we should commemorate that race by making people run that far in these modern Olympics. Yes. And the IOC said, I don't think anyone even invited you.

Who are you? Yeah. And he said the same thing again, almost verbatim. It was creepy. And they were finally like, well, a good idea is a good idea. He says, I'm friends with the Baron. So they decided to include the Olympic marathon

in the inaugural games in Athens, 1896, the first modern Olympics. And because it was in Athens, they were actually able to make a legit marathon from marathon to Athens, just like the original version, right? Their goal was for no one to drop dead when they got back, and fortunately no one did. And to the Greeks' great delight,

Greek runners took the top three spots, the winner being Spiriton Lewis. Not the Greek's last name, but his first name definitely screams Greek. Did you say unfortunately no one died or and fortunately? I said and. What kind of a monster do you think I am? Hey, I knew it,

but I just wanted to clear that up for people. Oh, thank you. You're looking out for me? I was looking out for you. Thank you, my friend. So 1904 was the third Olympic Games, the first one in the US, just as a little bit of a backdrop

because it ties in a bit to what happened in St. Louis. But the 1900 games in Paris were a bit of a flop because it was overshadowed by the Paris Exposition that was held at the same time. And the same thing basically happened in St. Louis. It coincided with their World's Fair, aka the Louisiana Purchase Centennial Exhibition. And it was, you know, just sort of overshadow it. World's Fairs were very big deals. The Olympics at the time weren't that big of a deal. In fact, because it wasn't like a big city like New York or Chicago or something,

a lot of American athletes didn't even come. So we maybe didn't necessarily feel our best. But one noteworthy thing was this was the first Olympics to debut all three metal colors, or I guess metal medals. Yeah, gold, silver, bronze. Right. I don't mean to be pedantic Chuck I'm sorry in advance, but it's my understanding that it wasn't until the 70s people called it st Louis I think up to that point it was st. Louis. Okay

I'm glad you pointed that out So one of the cool things about the st. Louis Olympics is that there was a guy named George Iser, who I read a little bit about. He had a wooden leg and this is a 1904 wooden leg. He won six medals, I think in one day as an American gymnast. Did he win leg throwing? Did he win what? Leg throwing.

I didn't know that that was an event. I think you're thinking of the strongest lumberjack event. Oh, yeah, yeah, okay. That or the Highland Games, sure. So he won gymnastic medals with the wooden leg. Yeah. That's amazing. Pretty impressive, six of them. Yeah.

So this is actually a pretty sweet mashup of our marathon episode and our human zoos episode. They kind of collide here in this episode, the 1904 marathon. The reason why is because in 1904, there was a guy named James E. Sullivan, and he was essentially the guy who ran amateur sports in America, and he was also on the International Olympic Committee representing America. He had a lot to do with amateur sports, right? Yeah.

He was selected as the organizer of the 1904 Games in St. Louis, and he's also one of the reasons why there was such a thing as the human zoo at the World's Fair that year too. Yeah, he was by all accounts a pretty xenophobic, racist kind of guy. One of the things he did later on, famous, say legendary athlete Jim Thorpe, indigenous American Jim Thorpe, had his metal stripped because James Sullivan made a push to do so because they found out that he played minor league baseball very briefly. I

want to do a thing on a show on Jim Thorpe by the way. Yeah I agree we should definitely do an episode on him because in addition to him being such an amazing athlete he really apparently got screwed over not just by the people taking his medals back but by people around him he trusted who basically sold him out to cover their own hides. So back to Sullivan before we get to his human zoo experience that he cultivated at this World's Fair just want to also point out that he was pretty much exclusively into white men participating

in sports because not only did he have a bone to pick with Jim Thorpe, but he did not like black athletes participating. He did not like women participating in 1908 at the Olympics in London. They finally said, hey, you know what? We should have women in here swimming and running. And Sullivan refused to let the United States field a woman's team. Right and like you also said the World's Fair was going on at the same time as the Olympics and part of the World's Fair as was profiled more closely in our Human Zoos episode was essentially just a bunch of indigenous villages from around the world that where the like actual people like actual indigenous people from the Philippines

From Congo from all sorts of other countries at the time were brought to be in these living exhibits Essentially to show just how superior white America and white Europe was to these people They were basically paid and under contract to act as native and indigenous as they possibly could. And that was a big central feature of the 1904 World's Fair. And being the head of the Department of Physical Culture for the World's Fair, Sullivan kind of did a mashup between the World's Fair and their human zoos and the Olympic Games that he was organizing

and came up with what were called the Anthropology Games, whereas he also called them the Special Olympics. That's right. These were athletic contests where they would get white Americans and pit them against indigenous people, people of color, in the newspaper there in St. Louis, you know, things like barbarians meet in athletic games. And it was, you know, it was like an exhibition, again, of like, to try and show the superiority of white athletes for this World's Fair. And isn't everyone going to love it? Yeah. So they came up with the shot put, the long jump,

the high jump, the mile run. And I'm pretty sure we talked about this in the human zoos episode, but they, the, um, the indigenous people who were recruited to participate on the indigenous side, um, essentially weren't really told the rules. They were just told, go do this essentially. And so of course they lost. It was super told, go do this, essentially. And so

of course they lost. It was super lopsided. And so I guess just to be fair, they came up with some indigenous type events. And I made scare quotes to everybody. Tree climbing, archery, javelin. And yes, essentially the white athletes mopped the floor with the indigenous athletes, proving to Sullivan and the rest of the white people assembled to watch the stuff that whites were inherently superior for another while longer. So Sullivan was also the guy that was in charge

of designing this race, even though he probably shouldn't have been because he did a very poor job designing this course. He had a theory and it wasn't his idea but there was a theory at the time where something called purposeful dehydration was the way forward for endurance athletes. That is don't drink much, don't eat much because that'll just upset your stomach and it'll it'll not help you in your race. So he said, hey, why don't we try this out here and we'll just put one water station close to the 12 mile mark and not let them drink any water aside from that and we'll see how it shakes out.

Yeah, from what I can tell, you would be disqualified if you were caught drinking water other than at that station. Um, so yeah, I know that some, the runners involved had support teams who were basically helping them along with like, you know, keeping their spirits up or whatever. And, but one of the things they were absolutely forbidden from doing is giving their athlete water, their runner water. Yeah.

So it sounds nuts, purposeful dehydration, but if you stop and think about, you know, it's also not a good idea to eat a bunch of stuff and then go out and run today. I think this is, people just mistakenly thought that about water at the time too. Yeah, the other bad idea was they started this thing at three in the afternoon in August in St. Louis, which is hot and humid.

It was 90 degrees that late afternoon, that late afternoon into early evening is most times the hottest part of the day. And not only that, but he said, hey, let's run it out there on the dirt road, which may have been okay if it was just these, what was it, 32 runners running, but they had a team of horses running in front of them to try and clear the road and lead the way,

along with doctors and race officials and journalists. So they're just kicking up clouds of dust that reportedly you couldn't even see through at times, that they're having to run through and breathe this stuff in. Yeah, basically the whole time they're just choking on dust. Apparently, also I think that there were regular cars just using the road too at the time. So it was not, it was just a poorly designed, poorly planned, poorly executed thing altogether. There was one other thing about it too that I think most marathoners would be like, what?

There were seven hill climbs. They range from a feet to 300 feet. And the 300 foot hill is as tall as a 20 to 30 story building. I'm sure it's not nearly as steep as climbing up a 30 story building, but still you're walking up a substantial or running up a substantial incline

to a substantial height and then back down seven times. That's on top of everything else. That just is everything that's set up this race to be just legendary. I mean, we're talking about 120 years later, you know? Yeah, Heartbreak Hill, just to compare, if you don't know what kind of elevation rise that is for a marathon, for the Bossa Marathon,

I think is about 90 feet. Wow. And I'm not sure of the actual, you know, I think it's about a half mile for Heartbreak Hill, but again, I'm not really sure how far that 300 feet was, but it's more than three times, so it couldn't have been fun. Are you into marathons? You gonna run a marathon?

Am I into marathons? I've never run more than two miles in my life. Well, I mean, hey, they say the journey toward a marathon starts with a two mile run. No, no, no, my line that I always use is I don't even like to drive 26 miles. That's a good line, man. Not into it.

I say we take a break and come back and start talking about some of the runners that were in this thing, okay? All right, we'll be right back. For so many people living with an autoimmune condition, the emotional toll is as real as the physical symptoms. Starting this May, join host, Martine Hackett for Season 3 of Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a Ruby Studio production, and partnership with Argenics. From myasthenia gravis, or MG, to chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, also known as CIDP, Untold Stories highlights the realities of navigating life with these conditions, from challenges

to triumphs. In this season, Martina and her guests discuss the range of emotions that accompany each stage of the journey. Whether it's the anxiety of misdiagnosis or the relief of finding support in community, nothing is off limits. And while each story is unique, the hope they inspire is shared by all. Listen to Untold Stories,

Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. ["Signature"] For decades, the mafia had New York City in a stranglehold, with law enforcement seemingly powerless to intervene. It uses terror to extort people.

But the murder of Carmichael Lonti marked the beginning of the end, sparking a chain of events that would ultimately dismantle the most powerful crime organization in American history. It sent the message to them that we can prosecute these people. Discover how a group of young prosecutors took on the mafia and with the help of law enforcement, brought down its most powerful figures.

These bosses on the commission had no idea what was coming their way from the federal government. From Wolf Entertainment and iHeart Podcasts, this is Law and Order Criminal Justice System. Listen to Law and Order Criminal Justice System on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey parents, are you looking for a fun, screen-free way to keep your kids entertained and inspired? Meet Lively Louis Stories, the podcast that brings joy, imagination, and valuable life lessons to your little ones.

Every episode of Lively Louis Stories whisks your family away on an incredible adventure with Levi and Ivy as they meet unicorns, dinosaurs, they time travel, and even more. Each story is designed to spark creativity and teach important values like gratitude and compassion. Perfect for road trips, playtime, or bedtime, our stories create magical moments that both kids and parents will love. Plus, your kids can even submit their own stories

and hear their ideas come to life. Tune in to Lively Louis Stories on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app, search Live Lilo Stories, and start listening today. You can also find us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Let the adventure begin. All right, so I mentioned that 32 people participated in this race in 1904. Fourteen would end up finishing the race, which is by far the fewest ever in Olympic history still to this day. But you know, we'll kind of go through some of the runners here,

because some were more experienced than others, some were wackier than others. Three had won the Boston Marathon, so there were, you know, there were some legit experienced marathoners in there, but there were definitely some dudes running this race that, and again, in 1904, running marathons wasn't you know nowadays if you do that kind of thing. That's your full-time job basically You know if you're competitive that is like in at an Olympic level But back then it was just like hey, I'm I do this I run a bakery or I'm a professional clown

But I'm pretty good. You know I can run a long way so I'm in professional clown, but I'm pretty good. You know, I can run a long way, so I'm in the Olympics. Right. There was a guy named Fred Lors, who was a bricklayer and he had won a five mile race sponsored by Sullivan's amateur athletic union. Good enough. Yeah, sure. Five miles marathon. What's the difference?

There's a guy named Albert Corey. He worked at a slaughterhouse in Chicago. He was from France. So I guess Albert Corey. I blew up in my face. Um, and then there was one of the best known non professional or non, um, one of the best known walk-ons, I guess you could call them. His name was Felix Carvajal, and he was from Cuba.

He was five feet, one inch, and he was 100% awesome. He was. He was, he had a big personality. He was quite a character, according to all accounts. At various times during the race, he would stop just to chat it up with people who were cheering him on. He would playfully like steal peaches out of their hands as he was running

he showed up in long sleeves and long pants and Everyone was like dude. You got to cut those pants down at least and luckily enough There was a someone there with a knife and cut them off at the knees for him like right before the race started Yeah, he was no stranger to running or moving long distances. His nickname was Andorin the walker, and he was well known in Cuba already because he had walked the length of Cuba and back at least once, I saw it twice in one source.

That's 777 miles, and he just did it because he wanted to. I saw him compared to the turn of the century Cuban forest gump. I wonder how he liked his shrimp. That's a great question. He probably liked it free because he very frequently didn't have any money. Yeah, he was also a messenger, supposedly ran 30 miles a day as part of his job. When he, and this is where it gets really kind of fun. They didn't, they weren't going to pay his way.

Cuba was like, sorry. I think the mayor of Havana was like, you know, we're not going to pay your way to go there. You're welcome to race, but we're not supporting this financially. He started running around City Hall in circles in protest and got so many supporters, they said, all right, here's the money, book your passage on a steamship, which he took to New Orleans and supposedly

was lost his money gambling and had to hitchhike close to 700 miles to St. Louis from there. Yeah, he hitchhiked and walked. And I saw that by the time he arrived in St. Louis for the race, he hadn't eaten in two days. So he ran that marathon without having eaten the last two days. Yeah. You also said that he liked to joke around with people and stop and chat with spectators and stuff.

Apparently he didn't speak English. And I also saw they didn't really speak Spanish, that he spoke some strange slangy dialect of Cuban, or from Cuba, and that people didn't necessarily know what he was talking about. Before I could tell, he was so animated, you were just engrossed in what he was saying and maybe kind of got what he was saying,

the general broad strokes of what he was trying to get across, or at the very least, to get a laugh out of you. That's how I kind of took all that. Yeah, I know I've said this before, but when I first traveled through Europe in the mid-90s, I spent an entire night at a German brew house with my friend that I was traveling with,

hanging out with this old German guy. I mean, old, he was probably in his 40s, but we were in our early 20s. So old. He seemed ancient. But yeah, hung out with this guy, drinking with him for probably five hours. He didn't speak a word of English,

and I spoke very bad German, but we communicated all night long. It's the international language of beer. Exactly, they had love. We kissed later on. Very nice. After drinking for five hours? Yeah. Imagine that. So Carvajal is, again, the biggest personality to emerge out of this, but he was far from the only kind of character, I guess. There were two guys,

and it's awesome. There's a picture of them together. Len Teuyani and I don't know if it's Jan or John, but Jan Masiani. They were both from South Africa and they were from the Swana tribe, T-S-W-A-N-A. And they were at the world's fair because they were some of the indigenous people who'd been imported to really kind of play up their indigenousness and also to reenact the Boer War between the Dutch and the English that had just concluded.

And in the war, they had been messengers for the Boers, so they were kind of recreating this on the daily. They were also involved in, I think they ran a marathon in the anthropology games. I have no idea how they were also involved in, I think they ran a marathon in the anthropology games. I have no idea how they were actually brought into the actual Olympic marathon. The main one, the closest explanation that I saw is that there was not a lot of internationality among

the participants. Again, like you said, people just weren't coming. I think, um, de Coubertin, the guy who founded the modern Olympics didn't even bother to show up that was that poorly attended in that Clujie. The head of the IOC. Right. So they, they needed to, um, make it more

international and so they had, uh, uh, two Onyani and Mashyani run in this marathon. That's the best explanation I could see of how two black athletes ended up running in the Olympic marathon. They would actually become the first black African athletes in Olympic history of any event of any sport.

And the, the first or the last, um, to represent South Africa for another 86 years until apartheid was taken down, taken apart. Wow. And then there's one other thing about Tuanyani. Tuanyani, he was a mailman, which will come into play in just a little bit. Yeah, I love the picture of those guys, though.

Like you mentioned, it's a, the look on their face is a little bit like, we're gonna do what? Right, it's like studiously avoiding looking perplexed, but I think they're kind of perplexed. Yeah, it's we're gonna do what slash we got this. Yeah, it's kind of got that feel for sure. Cause spoiler, they finished the race.

Yeah. I mean, you spoiled it for me. All right, so the first thing that they did is they ran five laps around the Olympic Stadium. I think they still do something like that now, where they, where their spectators are to watch before they get out on that dirt road. And before they left the stadium,

John Lorton, Boston Marathon winner, started vomiting and quit the race. Yeah, that was really surprising because he was a favorite. Five laps in, less than five laps in. Yeah, exactly. So that was the first guy. Once they made it out of the stadium and onto the dirt roads, they were immediately confronted with the problem of the thick dust. So in addition to running, they're also coughing, breathing shallowly, I'm sure.

And about 10 miles in, things really started to fall apart. And that's, I mean, that's a significant distance considering what they were having to put up with. And again, this is a 90 degree day in the afternoon in August, right? Yeah. So what happened first after John Lourdon was out? Well, they're getting dehydrated.

They're choking on the dust and dirt everywhere. About the 10-mile mark, our buddy Fred Lourdes, the bricklayer, said, I'm tapping out. He called on his little satellite phone and said, I'm officially withdrawing. And they got a helicopter in there, flew him out. Uh, he actually didn't. He said he couldn't continue, and then he flagged down a car and jumped in the car and was like, I'll just ride with you guys

because you're heading back to the Olympic Stadium, but I'm out. And they said, sure, no problem. So just kind of put that in your back pocket. I saw somewhere also that it was his support team slash coach that had been riding along with them, like next to him. Yeah. Yeah.

They had all their guys there. Yeah. So Carvajal, he doesn't have anybody there. He's totally on his own. He doesn't have a support team. And remember he hasn't eaten in two days. So part of the course ran past an apple orchard and he decided to stop and eat some apples. And depending on who you ask, either he ate too many apples because he was very

hungry, the apples he ate were rotten, or he didn't eat apples at all and he just ate a bunch of peaches like you said that he'd snatched from some spectators. Either way, he ended up with stomach cramps from either the apples or the peaches or both. And so Carvajal did what any Olympic marathoner would do face to that situation. He found a shady place to lay down and took a nap in the middle of the marathon. That's right, which is hysterical.

So one guy's in a car, one guy that the favorite had puked and stopped before they left the stadium. Our fun Cuban friend is napping in the orchard. One of the South African runners is chased a mile off course by a stray dog, so that ends up adding, I mean, I guess a couple of miles if he had to get back. Right? Yeah.

So he ran like a real marathon then. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, because this was about two miles shorter. So yeah, Tuanyani was the only one to like a real marathon then. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, because this is about two miles shorter So yeah, two on Yanni was the only one to run a real marathon And the reason I mentioned that he was a mailman is because yes, he was chased by a dog while he was running the marathon I didn't little cliche, but it's it's true. I've seen dogs chase mail carriers before it's not a pretty sight I know ask a mail carrier. They will say that it's a trope for a reason. So all the way at mile 16,

Sam Meller, who was another favorite, he started to cramp up from dehydration. And there's an account that says that he got lost, actually. He was kind of disoriented from dehydration and exhaustion. And trying to find his way back to the course, He got lost, actually. He was kind of disoriented from dehydration and exhaustion. And trying to find his way back to the course, he wore himself out and eventually was just like, I can't do this anymore. I'm out.

All right. So, Malor is now out. And then we've got the worst case of them all, which was a guy from California named William Garcia. Billy Garcia, at mile 19, starts coughing up blood, passes out on the road and is rushed to the hospital and has to have emergency surgery because his esophagus was so caked with dust and dirt and he was swallowing so much of this stuff,

it tore his stomach lining. So he could have literally died. Yeah, and imagine, I mean, like, this guy just started breathing this dust just a couple hours before, so, I mean, it had a really pronounced effect. It was some really nasty dust, I guess. Should we take a break? Yeah, we're gonna take a break, and we're gonna start

closing in on that finish line after we get back. How about that? All right, we'll be right back. For so many people living with an autoimmune condition, the emotional toll is as real as the physical symptoms. Starting this May, join host, Martin Hackett, for season three of Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a Ruby Studio production, and partnership with Argenics. From myasthenia gravis, or MG,

to chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, also known as CIDP, Untold Stories highlights the realities of navigating life with these conditions, from challenges to triumphs. In this season, Martín and her guests discuss the range of emotions that accompany each stage of the journey. Whether it's the anxiety of misdiagnosis or the relief of finding support in community, nothing is off limits.

And while each story is unique, the hope they inspire is shared by all. Listen to Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. ["The New York Times"] For decades, the mafia had New York City in a stranglehold with law enforcement seemingly powerless to intervene.

It uses terror to extort people. But the murder of Carmichael Lonti marked the beginning of the end, sparking a chain of events that would ultimately dismantle the most powerful crime organization in American history. It sent the message to them that we can prosecute these people.

Discover how a group of young prosecutors took on the mafia and with the help of law enforcement, brought down its most powerful figures. These bosses on the commission had no idea what was coming their way from the federal government. From Wolf Entertainment and iHeart Podcasts, this is Law and Order Criminal Justice System. Listen to Law and Order Criminal Justice System. Listen to Law and Order Criminal

Justice System on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey parents, are you looking for a fun, screen-free way to keep your kids entertained and inspired? Meet Lively Louis Stories, the podcast that brings joy, imagination, and valuable life lessons to your little ones. Every episode of Lively Louis Stories whisks your family away on an incredible adventure with Levi and Ivy. As they meet unicorns, dinosaurs, they time travel, and even more. Each story is designed to spark creativity and teach important values like gratitude and compassion. Perfect for road trips, playtime, or bedtime, our stories create magical moments that both kids and parents will love.

Plus, your kids can even submit their own stories and hear their ideas come to life. Tune in to Lively Louis Stories on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app, search Lively Louis Stories, and start listening today. You can also find us on Apple Podcast podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Let the adventure begin. So, I mentioned earlier, you might have thought I was kidding when I said some people might work as a professional clown, but can run far. That was the case with Thomas Hicks. He was a clown, but he was also a clown that suffered from dehydration because he was not

allowed to drink. Right. At mile 10 was like, you've got to give me water, you know, dust flying out of his mouth. And they said, no, no, no, you have to run two more miles to get that water. They sponged him down with some warm distilled water, which must have been quite a relief, wiped his back and shoulders off a little bit. Eventually would get that water. But then on the other side of that break at the seven mile mark Was like by the way, I'm thirsty again. That didn't that didn't satisfy me for the rest of the race Mm-hmm. They said here drink this and he said what is it and they said his egg whites and strick nine down the hatch

Yeah, and apparently that that was like giving Popeye spinach, because it definitely put a little pep in his step. And the reason why is because strychnine, um, in very small doses, I saw something like one milligram, um, acts as a stimulant. Uh, so much so that there was a, a bronze medalist from Kazakhstan in weightlifting named Izat Artikov, who had his medal stripped because

he tested positive for strychnine in 2016. And it's enough of an effective stimulant that it's a banned substance. At the time, weren't any banned substances, apparently except water, in the Olympics or in the marathon. And so they were able to give him this little boost

with strychnine. I don't know what the purpose of the egg whites were, but I'm sure he was like, I don't care. There's some percentage of this is water and I'll take it. Right. Water was a performance enhancing drug, but Strich 9 was not. Yeah, exactly. All right, so back to Fred Lores.

Remember, this guy's kicking it in his doctor's car. He's riding around, the AC's blaring, he's listening to Run DMC in the back of that limo, and they get close to the finish line back at the stadium. About four miles out, he was like, this'll be hysterical. I'm feeling pretty good now after being in the car for so long.

I'm gonna pretend like I'm still in this race. Got out of the car, ran into the stadium, the crowd roars because he's in the lead, and crosses the finish line at three hours and 13 minutes, and was being handed basically the the Brial Cup, named for Brial, who invented this thing from Alice Roosevelt, daughter of Teddy, and someone in the stands says, wait a minute, that guy was in a car, I'm not sure how they found this out,

but someone in the stands clued them in that he was cheating, and despite him saying like, hey, this is just a joke, they're like, no, no, no, my friend, you were about to take that cup, you're banned for life. Yeah, I imagine that person like shouting out that he was a cheater being kind of like Princess Buttercup getting booed and the princess bride.

Everybody's cheering and there's just that one old woman going boo. Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of exactly how it happened to tell you the truth. Now that I think about it. So, um, Lars was disqualified and Hicks, Thomas Hicks, the professional clown was far enough back that his team received word like, hey, this guy is just disqualified.

The, the, the first place is now open again. And Thomas Hicks was like, okay, I'm going to try hit me with some more strychnine and egg whites and you got any brandy on you because I think it's brandy time and they did, they gave him a concoction of those three things. And he drank it down and they said, wait a minute, Champ, we got something even better for you. We're going to give you another warm sponge bath. They get out there and chafe.

And so he kept running. And as he kept running, remember, he had, apparently at mile 12 with that water station, they were allowed one cup of water. That's it. They couldn't were allowed one cup of water. That's it. They couldn't just sit there and pound water. So this guy was nearing the end of a, of a 24 mile run with one cup of water on two doses of strychnine, a bunch of egg whites and some brandy. And he is just barely hopping along toward the end, he was kind of engaging in like a shuffling jog into a walk and then back into a

shuffling jog. And he seemed to, as far as the, I think the race official said, he was basically out of it. Just totally out of it. Not even in his body anymore. the pasty, glue-like quality of the inside of his mouth and the sweaters on his teeth. Yeah, for sure. And his breath, frankly.

Yeah, at least they didn't give him yolks, but yes, it would still be pretty bad. Yeah, there was one quote about the last couple of miles there. His eyes, I almost want to read this as Quint from Jaws, because that's what it sounds like. His eyes were dull, lusterless. The ashen color of his face and skin had deepened. His arms appeared as weights, well tied down. He could scarcely lift his legs while his knees were almost stiff. Yeah, he's walking around like Molly Shannon in the episode of Seinfeld where

she doesn't move her arms when she walks. That's how this guy was running his marathon toward the end. Yeah, totally. Yeah, making meringue in his mouth. Oh, God. So he started to hallucinate, is the report, that Thomas Hicks was like, the finish line is still 20 miles away. Can you imagine just the sense of dread

that would run over you if you suddenly started believing that? And I guess his support team was like, no, no, buddy, we're almost there. We're right there. And as he started to cross the finish line, his trainers helped him. This was a kind of something that plagued early marathons that the trainers, the support staff were totally fine with essentially carrying you across the finish line. I don't know if it was this one or the guy from the 1908 Olympic marathon, but

one of the two were so carried across the, the finish line that their feet were still moving in midair as if they were still making their way, you know? Yeah, like a cartoon. Pretty much. Yeah. So he was very much helped across the finish line, but this thing was so exhaustive and just so brutal that he still won first place. But even as he was crossing the finish line, there was the St. Louis Dispatch wrote about

how he looked and how he was behaving, which was even worse than what the race official wrote earlier. You want me to read it? Yeah. You want me to read it? Yeah. You want me to read it like Quint? Or either that or like a 1904 St. Louis writer. Oh, I'll just read it as Sammy Davis Jr. Okay, all right.

No, no. Come on. No, it's too long. I'll read the last bit. He must have heard the uproar around him, but he betrayed no sign of it. He was past that. He did look up once when the din was at its height.

He was within a few yards of the finish. Did you hear that? Mm-hmm. Did something blow up? No, it's bad thunder. Let's leave it in there. And here comes Sammy to finish up. His lower jaw man was hanging as in imbecility. His eyes stared blankly, babe, but his pitiful expression didn't change, man. BLAIR I think the best thing that ever happened

to this podcast was everyone, including me, discovering that you can do a great Sammy Davis Jr. PETER Oh, I mean, it all goes to Billy Crystal. I just stole his impression from SNL. BLAIR I'm not. I reject that. PETER Okay. So, yeah, so he was in worse shape than we thought even. He didn't even know what was going on. stole his impression from SNL? I'm not, I reject that. Okay. So yeah, so he was in worse shape than we thought even. He didn't even know what was going on.

What was his time? Three hours, 28 minutes, the worst time in history of the Olympics. So apparently by 30 minutes, it was the slowest gold medal time in the Olympic marathon. By 30 full minutes, and keep in mind, starting at the next Olympics in 1908, the marathon began to be run as a 26.2 mile race. So this was two miles shorter and still slower by 30 minutes.

So technically, it was probably about 40 minutes slower than the next worst time in Olympic history. There was one other really significant thing about all this. Um, it had the greatest number of did not finishes, uh, something like 56% of the people did not complete the race. 30, four only 14 of the original 32 runners completed this race that is abysmal.

I think the next worst, um, percentage was like 28% in Tokyo, in Tokyo a few years back. This is like, no, nothing has ever been run like this before and hasn't been since. Yeah. Our friends from South Africa, both finished, like I said earlier, one came in 12th place, so beat two people. And one of them came in 9th place. So, you know, ninth out of 15. And these guys had never run marathons before. No, and one of them, I think we left out, if you look at that photo, one of them's wearing boots,

and the other one's barefoot. So, it's pretty impressive. Carvahal, I keep thinking of the ice cream cake in it. I know. Carvahal, he finished fourth, and don't forget, he took a nap in the middle of this, hadn't eaten in two days, and still finished fourth. So there's no telling what he could have done had he been rested and fed and hadn't eaten a bunch of apples that gave him stomach cramps.

So Carvajal won, in my opinion. Yeah, I agree. You would think that James Sullivan learned his lesson and was like, well, I guess we proved that water drinking is probably something you should do because less than half of these guys finished. Not so, he actually wrote a book in 1909 called Marathon Running, where he said,

don't get into the habit of drinking and eating in a marathon race. Some prominent runners do, but it is not beneficial. Smart. Smart guy. So he did also say that there was, that the marathon was essentially indefensible and that it asked too much of human endurance. So he kind of turned his back on it, but other people were like, no, we like the marathon.

He's like, really? Okay, yeah, the marathon's great. Right. And like I said, the 1908 Olympic Marathon was the first where it was run as 26.2 miles. And the lore goes that the extra.2 miles was because the distance from the actual finish line at 26 miles to the box where the Royals were sitting watching the race was 0.2 miles. So they had to add 0.2 miles onto that 26 miles so that the Royals could be sitting

there at the finish line. That's the lore and I'm pretty sure it's true. Yeah, I totally buy that. Sure. You got anything else? I got nothing else. This was a good one. Thank you to Peter Fitzgibbon. Thanks, Peter If you want to be like Peter and send us an email, we would love that We always are happy to get good ideas We'll add them to the pile and since I said that and got confused for a second thinking that I was wrapping up the show It's time for listener mail I'm gonna call this short and sweet on phone freaking and this is from Kathy with a K. Hey guys when you mentioned long distance calls and how people got around the high rates

reminded me of when I was a teenager and would go out of town with friends skiing or to the beach. They had a system where they would arrive at our destination. We would call home person to person, asking to speak to Buddy, who was their dog. And that was the little clue there. My parents would say he was not at home, and they would know that we had arrived safely. Nice. That's from Kathy with a K,

so it's a nice little work around hack. Parents knew when someone called asking for the dog, that just meant they were there safely. No charges. Anytime I hear Kathy with the K, it makes me wonder if it's one of our stuff you should know army members. Kathy with the K from Arizona who gave us the lassoes

to learn how to rope steer with. I don't think it's that Kathy, but I've still got that rope. I keep it at the camp. Same here. I hope to rope a bear one day. That'd be great. I hope you get it on video if you do.

Yeah. Well, if you want to be like Kathy and send us a cute little anecdote about something we talked about, we love that too. And you can send that as well to stuffpodcast at iHeartRadio.com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. For so many people living with an autoimmune condition like myasthenia gravis or chronic

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