10 Olympic marathon quirks
- Salvador Garcia, a sergeant in Mexico’s presidential guard, won the 1991 New York Marathon, and was promoted to lieutenant; when he finished a disappointing 9th at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, he was demoted back down to sergeant.
- Impoverished and uneducated South African Josiah Thugwane, winner of the 1996 Olympic Marathon in Atlanta, had no idea that there was such a thing as a medal ceremony, and tried to leave the stadium after his victory; he also had to be told to climb onto the podium.
- Another runner at Atlanta, who finished 107th out of 112, was Islam Djugum of Bosnia-Herzegovina, who had to keep changing his training routes at home so as not to be shot by snipers.
- Thomas Hicks, the English-born American who won the 1904 St. Louis Olympic race, was administered several doses of strychnine and brandy after he started to suffer from fatigue.
- Czechoslovakian legend Emil Zatopek completed the incredible treble of 5,000m, 10,000m and marathon at the 1952 games in Helsinki. He had never run a marathon before.
- In 1912, in Stockholm, Japanese runner Shizo Kaniguri dropped out after 20km, and was so ashamed he went back to Japan on his own, without getting back in touch with his national team. 50 years later a Swedish journalist tracked him down and took him back to Sweden where the 71-year-old symbolically completed the course.
- In 1984, in Los Angeles, Haitian Dieudonné Lamothe came a long way last, and revealed years later that the Haitian Olympic officials had threatened him with death if didn’t finish.
- South African winner of the 1912 Stockholm event, Kennedy McArthur, had grown up in Ireland, where he was a postman, and used to run his entire 15-mile round - with mailbag.
- Finnish great Lasse Viren dropped out of the 1980 marathon in Moscow after diving into some bushes with a sudden case of the screaming squits.
- Ethiopia’s Abebe Bikila won the Rome Olympic marathon in 1960 barefoot.
Will there be quirky stories from this year’s Olympic marathon? We’ll have to wait and see.