WHY IS A MARATHON
26.2 MILES?
G'day folks,
Here is another challenging question for you. Know the answer?
The marathon may have ancient roots, but the foot race’s official
length of 26.2 miles wasn’t established until the 20th century. The
first organized marathon was held in Athens at the 1896 Olympics, the
start of the Games’ modern era. The ancient games, which took place in
Greece from around 776 B.C. to A.D. 393, never included such
long-distance races. The idea for the modern marathon was inspired by
the legend of an ancient Greek messenger who raced from the site of
Marathon to Athens, a distance of about 40 kilometers, or nearly 25
miles, with the news of an important Greek victory over an invading army
of Persians in 490 B.C. After making his announcement, the exhausted
messenger collapsed and died. To commemorate his dramatic run, the
distance of the 1896 Olympic marathon was set at 40 kilometers.
For the next few Olympics, the length of the marathon remained close
to 25 miles, but at the 1908 Games in London the course was extended,
allegedly to accommodate the British royal family. As the story goes,
Queen Alexandra requested that the race start on the lawn of Windsor
Castle (so the littlest royals could watch from the window of their
nursery, according to some accounts) and finish in front of the royal
box at the Olympic stadium—a distance that happened to be 26.2 miles (26
miles and 385 yards). The random boost in mileage ending up sticking,
and in 1921 the length for a marathon was formally standardized at 26.2
miles (42.195 kilometers).
Today, marathon races take place everywhere from the North Pole to
the Great Wall of China. In America alone, there are now more than 1,100
marathons each year. For decades, marathons were only open to male
athletes. The Boston Marathon, which kicked off in 1897 and is the
world’s oldest annual marathon, began allowing female competitors in
1972, while the first Olympic marathon for women wasn’t held until 1984.
In 1976, an estimated 25,000 runners finished marathons in the United
States; by 2013, the estimated number of competitors who completed a
26.2-mile course had soared to 541,000.
Clancy's comment: Mm ... Interesting answer, eh? I bet you never knew that. I sure didn't.
I'm ...
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