1904 Olympic Marathon
Public Domain
Over half of the 32 entrants did not finish the marathon. The marathon’s first “winner” got his picture taken with the US President’s daughter. Then it turned out that he cheated by hitching a ride in a car. The second “winner” had been doped with rat poison and was carried over the finish line by his friends. If he hadn’t received immediate medical attention, he would have died on-site. Multiple runners, including the winners of the previous two years’ Boston Marathons, got lung injuries from dust kicked up by the race officials’ cars.
The fourth-place finisher got sick on the way, having stolen apples that turned out to be rotten from a nearby orchard. The ninth-place finisher might have placed better if he hadn’t been chased off course by wild dogs. One of the organizers believed that “purposeful dehydration” would help the runners and had deliberately limited the water sources available to the runners.
Story credit – Reddit/fubo