Nadene Goldfoot
Setting out from Athens, Phidippides made for Sparta journeying by way of Eleusis, Megara, and Corinth. Greek couriers of his day are believed to have been able to cover over a hundred kilometres a day, but Phidippides is said to have run the 250 kilometres to Sparta in only two days; much of it over uneven and rocky terrain.
Unfortunately, when he reached Sparta, the city was in the middle of a religious festival that forbade mobilization for war during its celebrations. When at last the Spartans set off for Athens several days later, the battle had already been fought.
- The Legend: The famous tale, popularized centuries after the event, tells of Pheidippides (or sometimes Eukles) running directly from the Marathon battlefield to Athens (about 25-26 miles) to announce the victory, after which he died.
- The Battle of Marathon (490 BCE) took place on the coastal plain of Marathon in eastern Greece, approximately 40 km (25 miles) northeast of Athens. The site is situated near Marathon Bay, where the Persian fleet landed, and the Athenian army camped. The battlefield features the Athenian burial mound (Soros), located about 4 km south of the modern town of Marathon.
- The Historical Account: According to the historian Herodotus (writing closer to the time), Pheidippides was actually a professional courier sent before the battle from Athens to Sparta to request aid, covering over 150 miles (240 km) in two days.
- The Battle (490 BCE): The Greeks, led by Athens and Plataea, defeated the first Persian invasion force led by Darius I.
- There were 3 Kings named Darius of Persia. Darius I reigned (522-486 BCE) and had inherited the throne of Cyrus. At the beginning of his reign, he permitted Zerubbabel and the Jews who had returned to Jerusalem to resume reconstruction of the Temple. King Darius I. Cyrus II was his father as he inherited the throne from him. He died in 529 BCE as King of Persia. He had many conquests of which he overran the Babylonian empire, including Judah. He pursued an enlightened policy towards his subject peoples and in 538, granted permission to the exiles of Judah in Babylon to return to their homeland and rebuild the Temple. (Ezra 1:1-44; II Chon.36:22-3). The Jewish exiles regarded Cyrus as a Divine agent.
- Our history tells us that Cyrus II's wife (Queen) was Hadassah, or Queen Esther (Hebrew) of our Purim Story, found in the Bible (Esther 2:7). We know Esther as being the Queen of King Ahasuerus, and through her intervention with him, and with the aid of her kinsman, Mordecai, succeeded in averting the annihilation of the Persian Jewish community planned by the king's adviser, Haman.
- Right now this story is also acting as a unifying agent between the Iranians of the Revolution and Israel as both love Kings Cyrus and Darius, part of their history as well.
- Reading about this Marathon history involving them is so apropos at this moment when we all are sitting and waiting to see what President Trump will do with his fleet off shore; will he attack as promised or will he listen to his aides and call it off? Yesterday he gave Iran's Ayatollah 48 hours to go along with his expectations that also include Israel's as well.
- Darius I attacked the Greek city-states primarily to punish Athens and Eretria for supporting the Ionian Revolt (499–493 BC), where they assisted in burning the Persian city of Sardis. Darius also sought to expand his empire into Europe and secure his western frontier by suppressing the mainland Greek states that threatened regional stability.
Burton Holmes' photograph titled "1896: Three athletes in training for the marathon at the Olympic Games in Athens". Charilaos Vasilakos in the middle.
Charilaos Vasilakos (Greek: Χαρίλαος Βασιλάκος, November 1875 – 1 December 1964)[ was a Greek athlete and the first man to win a marathon race. He also won a silver medal for a second place finish in marathon at the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens. As a young man he studied law at the University of Athens and worked in the Athens court of first instance. He was a member of the Panellinios sports club and a dedicated long-distance runner.
When the modern Olympics began in 1896, the initiators and organizers were looking for a great popularizing event, recalling the ancient glory of Greece. The idea of a marathon race came from Michel Bréal, who wanted the event to feature in the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 in Athens. This idea was heavily supported by Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics, as well as by the Greeks.
The Greeks staged a selection race for the Olympic marathon on 10 March 1896 that was won by Charilaos Vasilakos in 3 hours and 18 minutes (with the future winner of the introductory Olympic Games marathon coming in fifth).
The winner of the first Olympic Marathon, on 10 April 1896 (a male-only race), was Spyridon „Spyros“ Louis, a Greek water-carrier, in 2 hours 58 minutes and 50 seconds.
Modern Legacy: The marathon race was invented for the 1896 Athens Olympics to commemorate this ancient heroic feat. The distance was standardized to 26.2 miles (42.195 km) in 1908.
Modern Marathon
The women’s marathon was introduced at the 1984 Summer Olympics (Los Angeles, USA) and was won by Joan Benoit of the United States with a time of 2 hours 24 minutes and 52 seconds. In 1984, the Olympic marathon finally welcomed women—and 26-year-old Joan Benoit Samuelson from the USA seized the opportunity. Remarkably, just 17 days earlier, she had undergone arthroscopic knee surgery.
Her husband is Scott Samuelson , winner of the 2015 Hiett Prize in the Humanities.
This wasn’t just a gold medal; it was the very first Olympic marathon for women, claimed with grit, grace, and guts.Since the modern games were founded, it has become a tradition for the men’s Olympic marathon to be the last event of the athletics calendar, with a finish inside the Olympic stadium, often within hours of, or even incorporated into, the closing ceremonies. The marathon of the 2004 Summer Olympics revived the traditional route from Marathon to Athens, ending at Panathinaiko Stadium, the venue for the 1896 Summer Olympics.
Samuel Kamu Wanjiru
Samuel Kamau Wanjirū (10 November 1986 – 15 May 2011)died at 24 years old, was a Kenyan long-distance runner who won the 2008 Beijing Olympics Marathon in an Olympic record time of 2:06:32; becoming the first Kenyan to win the Olympic gold in the marathon. He became the youngest gold medallist in the marathon since 1932.
He set the current (as of 2020) 10,000m World Junior Record in 2005 and set the half marathon world record 3 times. In 2009, he won both the London Marathon and Chicago Marathon, running the fastest marathons ever recorded in the United Kingdom and United States, respectively. He retained his Chicago title in 2010 in a season fraught with injury.
In 2011, he died after a fall from a balcony at his home in Nyahururu following a domestic dispute..
The Olympic men’s record is 2:06:32, set at the 2008 Summer Olympics by Samuel Kamau Wanjiru of Kenya (average speed about 20.01 kilometres per hour or 12.43 miles per hour). The Olympic women’s record is 2:23:07, set at the 2012 Summer Olympics by Tiki Gelana of Ethiopia. The men’s London 2012 Summer Olympic marathon winner was Stephen Kiprotich of Uganda (2:08:01). Per capita, the Kalenjin tribe of Rift Valley Province in Kenya have produced a highly disproportionate share of marathon and track-and-field winners.
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