There is one event that is inextricably connected to the modern Olympic Games: the marathon race. When the first modern Olympics were scheduled for Athens, a friend of de Coubertin, Michel Bréal, a well-known french classical scholar, suggested a race recreating the epic race of Pheidippides who ranfrom Marathon to Athens in order to announce the victory over the Persians.
Everybody knows the name of Spyridon Louis, the winner of that first official marathon. (There has been a qualifying race among the greek participants three weeks before the official event). What is less known is that a greek woman tried to participate in the official race, was rebuffed and, still, did run the marathon.
Stamata Revithi was 30 years old at the time of the Athens Olympics. She was a widow with a very young child and completely destitute. She got the idea of participating in the marathon when she met some runner training on the road from Piraeus to Athens. She was a good long distance runner and she believed that she could beat many men. She presented herself at the eve of the event at the village of Marathon, where she was offered hospitality by the mayor. Things got ugly the next day, when she was refused participation by the race committee. The official justification was that the deadline for participation had expired. But is was clear that the real problem was her gender. The organisers tried to appease her promising her that she would participate in a women's only race, since several american ladies had expressed their interest for running the marathon. So, Revithi did not take the start of the official race. But on the next day she decided to run the marathon on her own. She started after having asked the mayor of the village to witness the time. When she arrived in Athens, some 5 and a half hours later, she asked some officers to sign her hand-written report to certify her time of arrival. She has supposedly commented that she could have done much better if she hadn't stopped along the way in order to look at some ships. Nothing is known about her after that date. As Tarasouleas is writing in his article "Stamata Revithi was lost in the dust of history". Still she was the first female marathoner and the whole story makes her something of a legend.
One can find many references about "two women running the marathon in 1896". While one of them is Revithi, one also encounters the name of Melpomene. It appears in supplements of the Messager d'Athènes, a newspaper in french published in Athens at that time. K. Lennartz, the famous olympic historian, quotes the text of the Messager, where one can read that a woman had run the marathon two weeks before the official race, as a test run, completing the distance in 4 and half hours. According to the Messager, she was "a woman of the people with marked features, of a tough and lively temperament". The description coincides with what is known of Stamata Revithi. So, to my eyes, the situation is clear. Revithi first did a test run and then, once her participation was refused, she did run the marathon one more time, not caring much about her performance, given that there was no competition whatsoever. As to the name of Melpomene, I believed that it was invented simply because it sounds much more greek (to foreigners' ears) than that of Stamata.
The feat of Stamata Revithi was not imitated in the years that followed. As I explained in the previous posts of the series, women were not really welcome in sports and even less so in athletics. But things started to change under the drive of A. Milliat. Although in MIlliat's organisations women did not run over distances longer than 1000 m, female distance runners started making their appearance. Thus it is reported that in 1918 Marie-Louise Ledru participated in the Paris Marathon and completed the race in 5 hours and 40 minutes. This has to be considered as the founding record for women's marathon, as it was obtained over the 42195 m distance, which became official at the 1908, London, Olympics. (The initial Marathon-Athens distance was of 40 km). In 1926, Violet Piercy improved greatly this time by running the marathon from Windsor to Battersea in 3 hours 40 minutes and 22 seconds. As P. Radford points out in his article, V. Piercy was a great publicist of women’s endurance running and she ran many events over the next 10 years “to prove that a woman’s stamina can be just as remarkable as a man’s”.
Piercy's time stood as unofficial world record for 37 years. The reason for this huge gap in time, was due to the fact that there were no women's competitions. Still, J. Hansen, in her great article on Women's Marathon Movement, mentions the “mystery woman in red" from Canada" who managed to participate in the 1951 of the Boston Marathon. Maybe so. But the real revolution in women's long-distance running starts in the 60s.
Dale Creig in action
In 1963 Mary Lepper, participating in the Western Hemisphere Marathon in Culver City, improved the unofficial world record, with 3:37:07. The same year Dale Creig participated in the Isle of Wight marathon and finished it in 3:27:45. (The funny thing is that the organisers had her followed, during the entire race, by an ambulance). Creig's record, hailed as the first world marathon mark for women, was short lived. Just two months later Millie Sampson completed the Owairaka Marathon, in New Zealand, in a time of 3:19:33.
Bobby Gibb at the arrival of the Boston Marathon
But the decisive step was when women started "infiltrating" the men's-only club of the famous Boston race. In 1966 Roberta Gibb, not allowed to participate officially, hid behind a bush, sneaked into the field and finished the race in 3:21:25. She repeated this in 1967 and 1968, the officials preventing her physically from crossing the finish line. (She had her revenge in 1996, when she was officially recognised as winner of the women's race and was awarded the corresponding medals). But the 1967 edition of the Boston Marathon was marked by a funny incident which, to tell the truth, eclipsed Gibb's performance.
The Switzer incident
Kathrine Switzer entered the race officially as K.V Switzer and having her (male) coach present her health certificate and pick up the number. A few kilometres into the race the officials realised that Switzer was a woman and tried to remove her from the race. Her teammates fended them off and Switzer could finish the race (in 4 hours and 20 minutes). (Switzer did improve her performances over time, winning the New York Marathon in 1974 and registering a personal best of 2:51.37 in Boston the next year). The publicity surrounding the Switzer incident helped make the quest for equality in road racing a political issue. It was clear at that point that the rules had to change, and change they did. Slowly as always, when it comes to women's rights.
The child prodigy, Maureen Wilton
A few days after the Boston Marathon Switzer was expelled from the AAU (Amateur Athletics Union). Several reasons were offered: she had run beyond the allowable distance for women; she ran with men; she fraudulently entered an AAU race; and she ran without a chaperone(!). The organisers of the Eastern Canadian Marathon in Toronto, being (much) more open minded than the Boston ones, invited K. Switzer to participate in this race. She was not the only female participant. Maureen Wilton, just 13 years 5 months old, also took the start but did not keep company to Switzer for long. She flew through the race finishing in a world record of 3:15:22. Even this record was to prove short-lived. A few months later Anni Pede-Erdkamp ran a marathon in Germany in 3:07.26. The record survived till 1970 when Caroline Walker, just 16 years old, completed the Trail's End Marathon in 3:02:53. Elizabeth Bonner improved this time the following year with 3:01:42, and then Sara Berman with 3:00:35. The 3 hours barrier was finally smashed by Adrienne Beames in Australia with 2:46:36. (It was a close thing because just a month later Nina Kuscsik and Elizabeth Bonner ran the New York City Marathon in 2:56:04 and 2:55:22).
Kuscsik and Bonner in the NY Marathon
In 1972, women were allowed to compete officially in the Boston Marathon for the first time. As running became a more popular sport during the 70s, more women began competing in marathons. In 1973 the first all women's marathon was held in Waldniel, West Germany. Still, Olympic organisers were giving no serious consideration to creating a women's marathon. The first official reason was that according to some "experts" the women's health would be damaged by long-distance running (pure poppycock). The second was that to be included in the Games, a women's sport must be widely practiced in at least twenty-five countries on at least two continents. Women's marathoning, the Olympic organisers argued, was simply not popular enough to include. The enthusiasm around the women's marathon was such that soon the latter argument was disproved. But the uphill battle was far from over.
Up to 1980 the longer distance the women were allowed to run in the Olympics was 1500 m! The plan for 1984 was to include the 3000 m. The idea was to proceed gradually, adding first the 5000 and the 10000 m and only then the marathon. The president of the IAAF at the time, A. Paulen, was advocating the gradual approach, fearing that pushing for the marathon might weaken the case for the 3000 m. However after following the Tokyo International Marathon in 1979 he was won over to the cause of women's marathon and soon after this the IAAF recommended its inclusion in the 1984 Olympics. (A women's marathon was included in the program of the first Athletics World Championships in 1983). The IOC tried to stall once more, resurrecting the old arguments of "long-distance running may harm women's health" and claiming that as the program was already too big no new events should be added. And as is customary for the IOC, the decision on the women's marathon was deferred, this time to the 1981 meeting of the Executive Board of the IOC. Fortunately, following an intense lobbying by K. Switzer, who, having retired from competitive running, was by that time the director of Women Sports Foundation, the decision was overwhelmingly in favour of the women's marathon. All that remained was the confirmation by the General Assembly of the IOC. Which turned out to be a pure formality. At long last the road for the women's olympic marathon was clear.
PS The 1981 IOC meeting was one of the most important ones for international sports. It marked the end of the amateurism era and of the hypocritical attitude that had plagued sports for almost a century. From that date onwards the international federations were allowed to set their own requirements for olympic eligibility. The presence and speech of Sebastian Coe was instrumental into convincing the IOC members. (And that was probably the beginning of the career of Sir Sebastian). Following the decision of the IOC, the athletes could receive prize and endorsement money and still be eligible for the Olympics. And the icing of the cake of the 1981 assembly was that, for the first time in the history of the IOC, women were elected as members. From that time onwards the road for women was going to be a little less arduous.
