Why is a marathon 42 kms

A third version suggests that our messenger Philippides ran, not just almost 42 km from Marathon to Athens, but about km from Athens to Sparta; that the run took place not after the battle was won, but before it began; and that the message to be delivered was not a victorious announcement, but a warning about the impending arrival of the Persian army.

The distance of the first Olympic marathon was However, as we all know, The distance between those two points is, you guessed it, In the Rome Olympic Games, Abebe Bikila made history not only for being the first African in winning the race, but he also did it barefoot, finishing in 2 hours, 15 minutes and 16 seconds.

In , Katherine Switzer registered for the Boston Marathon as KV Switzer, thus concealing the fact that she was a woman the rules at the time banned women from competing in this race.

Although race officials tried to physically stop her from running, she was able to finish the race with the support of her fellow running mates, who escorted here to the finish line. Katherine Switzer running the Boston Marathon. During the 42, km of this race, we have seen many things as for example the oldest finisher is a lady who run at San Diego being 92 years old, and out of the 30 runners in the Paris Olympics, only 7 made it to the finish line as the rest got lost in the streets of the city.

The slowest finisher was the japanese Shizo Kanakuri, who took 54 years,8 months, 6 days, 8 hours, 32 minutes and 20 seconds to finish the marathon.

History Vault. Recommended for you. How the Troubles Began in Northern Ireland. What Is the Rosetta Stone? Battle of Marathon. What Is Juneteenth? After delivering the news, he collapsed and died. What distance did he actually run? I made a little test. I went to the Google maps web site and asked for the direction from Marathon to Athens.

With the modern road system, the distance is But most historians assume that the distance ran by Phidippides was around 40 km. As legendary and fictitious as this story seems, it lead to the creation of the modern marathon race. When Pierre de Coubertin gave birth to the modern Olympic games, the first marathon was set to 40 kilometers.

But during the early Olympic games, the distance of the marathon varied a lot. It went from 40 km to The distance chosen was the one ran in London in : 26 miles yards or It is commonly said that the distance was set to 26 miles yards because of the Royal family. During the preparation of the summer Olympiads, it had been agreed that the organizers would include a marathon of about 40 km or 25 miles.