Athletics at the 1900 Summer Olympics – Men's marathon

The marathon race, which began at 2:30 p.m. on a day with temperatures reaching nearly 40 °C (102 °F [3]), wound through the streets of Paris. Thirteen runners started, though only twelve finished the four laps around the track that preceded the road running. Touquet-Daunis led until he withdrew from the competition, at which point Fast took over. Fast had tired himself trying to keep pace with the Frenchman, however, and was passed by Théato and Champion before long. Seven runners finished the race.

This was the second appearance of the event, which is one of 12 athletics events to have been held at every Summer Olympics. None of the runners from 1896 returned. The marathon, invented specifically for the 1896 Olympics, was not quite as much a novelty as four years prior; the Boston Marathon had been run every year starting in 1897 (the 1898 winner, Ronald MacDonald of Canada, was among the runners at the 1900 Olympics).

Canada, Great Britain, and Sweden appeared in the event for the first time. France and the United States were the only nations to have runners in both of the first two Olympic marathons.

The marathon was a single-race competition. The distance for the event had not yet been standardized; the 1900 version used a course that was 40.26 kilometres in length (compared to the approximately 40 kilometres of 1896 and the 42.195 kilometres later set as the standard). The course started with four laps of the track in the stadium before running through the streets of Paris.[4]

These were the standing world and Olympic records (in hours) prior to the 1900 Summer Olympics. Marathon distances were not standardized and world records or bests were not officially recognized.

World record	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a
Olympic record	Spyridon Louis (GRE)	2'58:50(*)	Athens, Greece	10 April 1896 (NS)

(*) Distance was 40 kilometres

Specific

General

• International Olympic Committee results database
• De Wael, Herman. Herman's Full Olympians: "Athletics 1900". Accessed 18 March 2006. Available electronically at .
• Mallon, Bill (1998). The 1900 Olympic Games, Results for All Competitors in All Events, with Commentary. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. ISBN 0-7864-0378-0.