The modern marathon – invented at White City

Dorando Pietri crossing the line at the end of the 1908 Olympic Marathon

The 1908 Olympics are commemorated with a list of athletes inscribed on the side of the BBC Broadcast Centre Building in White City, London W12, and the athletics finish line is marked in the paving outside the building.

When the modern Olympics began in Athens in 1896, a race of 40 kilometres, or 24.85 miles, was held to commemorate the legend of Pheidippides. He is the messenger who is said to have run from Marathon to Athens to announce a Greek victory over the Persians at the Battle of Marathon in 490 B.C. And to have promptly died.

The 1900 Olympic marathon in Paris covered just over 25 miles, and the 1904 Olympic marathon in St. Louis returned to the distance of 24.85 miles.

The men’s marathon race of the 1908 Summer Olympics took place on 24 July 1908.

The race began on the East Terrace at Windsor Castle. According to some accounts, King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, along with the Prince and Princess of Wales, had been influenced by attending the unofficial 1906 Athens Olympics on the 10th anniversary of the modern Games. For the 1908 Olympic marathon, the Princess of Wales watched the start, which began near the window of the royal nursery so that her children could watch, according to David Miller’s history of the Olympics, “Athens to Athens.” Thus, Miller wrote, the marathon distance “was determined in a bizarre manner.”

It was about 26 miles from Windsor Castle to the Olympic Stadium in White City. The original plan had the runners coming into the stadium at the royal entrance and running about 585 yards, circling the track counter-clockwise and finishing in front of the royal box, Davis said. But the royal entrance was deemed unsuitable; instead the runners entered at the opposite end of the stadium and, to enhance the view for the Queen and others, ran clockwise for 385 yards to the royal box.

The final yards made for a gripping and contentious result. Entering the stadium first on that hot and humid July day was an Italian pastry chef named Dorando Pietri. But he was exhausted, delirious. He turned the wrong way on the track, reversed course and began stumbling. According to news accounts, Pietri fell five times in that final quarter-mile.

Johnny Hayes won after Pietri was disqualified for having received assistance before the finish line. 75 competitors entered the race, of whom 55 from 16 nations started, with 27 from 11 nations finishing.

The Marathon from these London Olympics played an important part in the development of the modern marathon race. The 1908 Olympics created a distance of 26 miles 385 yards. In 1921 this was adopted as the standard distance.