Paris Olympics A picturesque marathon course The route passes many of the city’s landmarks, including the Palace of Versailles, the glass pyramid of the Louvre, and the Eiffel Tower—but it doesn’t take you past miles of unassuming one-block streets in the 13th arrondissement. Rue Michel BrealThat’s a shame, considering Michel Breal was the inspiration behind someone purposefully running a marathon.
Without Breal’s inspiration and the letter he wrote in 1894, the number of people running marathons each year would be zero. Over 1 millionOn Saturday morning, Long distance running. Bibs There are plenty of nipples available for babies It won’t change.
To the extent that Breal is remembered today, it is the 19th century Linguist and mythologyLeader of French education reformand the man who coined the phrase SemanticsBut he also knew a young man named Pierre du Coubertin, who was secretary-general of the Federation of French Sports Associations, an active advocate of education reform, and who, in the early 1890s, was planning a revival of the ancient Greek Olympic Games.
Bréal, 30 years older than Coubertin, was a leading intellectual of his time, a recipient of France’s Legion of Honor, and the man needed to bring dignity to the idea of an international festival of athletics. June 1894Coubertin is First encounter Breall of the International Olympic Committee I sat next to him He then delivered the opening speech, a symbol of the French elite’s acceptance of the new Olympics.
A few months later, as early planning for the Athens Games of 1896 was underway, Bréal wrote Coubertin a letter containing the following lines:
If you go to Athens, see if you can organize a marathon at the Pnyx. It would add an ancient atmosphere. If we knew how long it took Greek warriors to run, we could set a standard. I would claim the honor of offering a “Marathon Cup.”
Breal said, Greek mythologyMany Greek mythologists knew the story of the Battle of Marathon in 490 B.C., in which the Athenian army defeated a much larger Persian army that was thought to be unstoppable. According to legend, at the end of the battle, a messenger named Pheidippides was sent back to Athens to deliver news of the victory. He ran a distance of about 26 miles to deliver the message and died of exhaustion. 1879 poem by Robert Browning This story was known to many of Breal’s contemporaries, and he thought that staging a race to recreate the run would connect the new Olympics with their ancient traditions.
At the time, the idea of running such a long-distance race was strange. At the 1896 Olympics, there were no races longer than 1,500 meters, except for the marathon. Just four and a half minutesThe longest race was held in the ancient Greek games, Dricoswhich is a shorter distance than the Turkey Trot 5K.
Long-distance running did not exist as a sport until the late 19th century. Pedestrianismis an endurance race in which men (and a few women) walk hundreds of miles over the course of several days or weeks. But walking is not running, and many thought the proposed marathon would end with a modern athlete collapsing, as Pheidippides was told he would. “A race of this distance is in fact contrary to every principle of sport and hygiene,” the French newspaper said in an editorial. L’UniversHe assured readers that the race would probably be shortened to something more reasonable.
But as the 1896 Olympics approached, excitement grew, especially in Greece, about the race’s ancient connections. First marathon raceOn March 10, 1896, a dry run to select Greek athletes for the next Olympic Games was held in Greece, won by Karilaos Vasilakos in 3 hours 18 minutes. (As with all events at the first Olympic Games, this one was only contested by men; the women’s marathon was added to the Olympics in 1984.) At the Olympics itself, the marathon was positioned as the climax of the event.All Greeks felt An American magazine reporter stated that it would be “the main event of the Olympics.” 100,000 peopleThe largest crowd in the history of the Games, and one of the largest peacetime spectators in human history at that time, packed into the Panathenaic Stadium and surrounding area to await the exhausted runners. Then, a Greek water-carrier Spiridon Lewis Louis was the first to enter the stadium, and a new national hero was born. As a reward for his victory, Louis, as promised, silver cup It was donated by Michel Breal. Acropolis Museum.
The marathon race’s immediate success spawned imitators around the world and transformed long-distance running into a sport: the 1908 Olympic report noted “the craze for the ‘marathon race’ which swept the civilized world from Madison Square Garden to the Nile Valley.”
This proliferation of imitators also canonized Breal’s ancient run. There is no contemporary evidence that a man named Pheidippides ran from Marathon to Athens. The historian Herodotus wrote just a few decades after the battle: Attributed a completely different execution The emissary Pheidippides traveled about 160 miles from Athens to Sparta to ask for Spartan military aid. 500 years later, Plutarch wrote It was like a marathon run after the battle, but the runners Named Thersippus or Eucles.
Decades later thatThe satirist Lucian Known for being vague about the factsapparently combined the two stories into one, and it was Lucian’s version that eventually reached Browning and Breall, but the uncertainty of its origin story was known even at the time. The New York Times‘ A story from 1896 Regarding the victory of Spiridon, Louis’ victory was “so suspicious that the story” [Herodotus and Plutarch] It’s perfect for a dramatic scene.”
But while the race’s ancient origins are unclear, its modern (re)birth, and every marathon for over a century since, owes its existence to a Hellenistic linguist who is now buried in Montparnasse Cemetery. If runners would like to pay their respects to him, and if they still have the energy left, his resting place is just a 10-minute run from the finish line.
