What ’s the reason behind the cursed distance of a battle of Marathon ? The mythical account is that , around 490 BCE , the messenger Pheidippides run from Marathon to Athens to deliver news that the Greeks had trounced the Persians at the Battle of Marathon . The difficulty with that account , however , is that Pheidippides would have only covered a space of approximately 25 mile . So what account for the extra 1.2 geographical mile ?
When the modern marathon appeared in the recent 19th one C , the race distance was inconsistent . During thefirst Olympic gamesin 1896 , runners jog along Pheidippides ’s old route for a space of 40,000 meters — or 24.85 miles . ( That airstream , by the elbow room , was won by a Hellenic postal prole . ) The next Olympian games see the distance relegate to a pinch over 25 miles . And while subsequent marathon floated around the 25 air mile mark , no received aloofness was ever codified .
Then the Olympics follow to London . In 1908 , the marathon , whichstretchedbetween Windsor Castle and White City Stadium in London , lasted 26.2 miles — all for the welfare of England’sroyal crime syndicate .
It was n’t supposed to be that way . Like previous races , the original result was supposed to cover a ballpark of 25 miles . The royal family , however , had other plans : They want the effect to start directly in front of Windsor Castle — as thestory goes , the imperial kid wanted to see the start of the race from the castle nursery . Officials duly agree and moved the start line , set up on an extra nautical mile to the race .
As for the pesky final 0.2 ? That was the majestic family ’s demerit , too . The finale parentage was extended an extra 385 yards so the slipstream would end in front of the royal family ’s viewing boxwood .
Those extra 1.2 miles leaven to be a execration . The subspecies ’s leader , an Italian pastry chef namedDorando Pietri , collapsed multiple times while running toward the finis line and had to be helped to his feet . One of the hoi polloi who came to his aid was a diarist named Arthur Conan Doyle . Afterward , Conan Doyle compose about Pietri ’s late - subspecies struggles for theDaily Mail , saying , " Through the doorway creep a little , spent man … He trot for a few dog-tired yards like a humankind galvanize into life ; then the trot perish into a slow crawling , so slow that the officials could hardly walk slow enough to keep beside him . "
After the London Olympics , the distance of most marathons continued to linger between 24 and 26 miles , but it seems that Conan Doyle ’s writing may have brought special attention to the aloofness of 26.2 , empower it with a fabled " breaker - of - military personnel " reputation . Indeed , when the International Amateur Athletic Federation convene to standardise the endurance contest , they select the former London distance of 26 Admiralty mile and 385 thousand — or 26.219 miles .
Writingfor Reuters , Steven Downes conclude that , " the marathon airstream may have been as much a Conan Doyle creation as Sherlock Holmes . "
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