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The 1904 Olympic marathon in St. Louis was supposed to be a celebration of endurance, athleticism, and the ancient tradition of the marathon. Instead, the August 30 race became one of the strangest events in Olympic history, with extreme heat, dusty roads, scarce water, automobiles, a cheating scandal, and some truly questionable medical decisions. Of the 32 starters, only 14 finished the approximately 24.85-mile course.

As well, the modern version of the marathon wasn't fully established. St. Louis was not the full distance we now call a marathon. They were leading people down roads that would have been tough to run in fair conditions. Combine this with temperatures in the 90s, humidity, hills, and dust, and it made for quite an ordeal.

A Course That Seemed Designed to Cause Problems

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The race began in the afternoon, rather than the cooler morning hours commonly used for modern marathons. Temperatures were in the low 90s, and the course included seven hills with long climbs and descents. Runners also had to contend with rough, dusty roads and ordinary traffic, while automobiles accompanying the race kicked additional dust into the air.

There was also a lack of water. There was one station on the actual race course that was about 12 miles in, and you could also get some around the 6-mile mark. Not much, though, compared to today's standards. The race director, James Sullivan, wanted to see how much dehydration would affect the run, so they weren't just able to stop and get water anytime they wanted.

Once people started running for their lives, the real marathon runners were separated from the rest of the pack. One runner named William Garcia passed out from all the dust he was able to eat. With more than half the field failing to finish, the race was already looking less like a conventional Olympic competition and more like an extremely uncomfortable experiment.

Then there was Len Taunyane, one of the two South African participants in the race. Taunyane was chased roughly a mile off the course by wild dogs, adding an unexpected detour to an event that already had plenty of problems. Despite that interruption, he eventually returned to the course and finished ninth.

Félix Carvajal had a story all his own as he stepped on the starting line. Carvajal was previously known as a mail carrier who told his superiors he could run and earned some money to get to America. Once in America, he lost his money somewhere around New Orleans and hopped trains and walked the rest of the way to St. Louis. He also competed in ordinary street clothes rather than the specialized running gear you'd expect from an elite marathoner today.

As seen above, Carvajal did pretty well. He said that he stopped and talked to people while on the course. He also obtained food from various points, including apples from an orchard. After eating some of the fruit, he developed stomach cramps and eventually stopped for a nap, yet he still recovered enough to finish fourth.

Fred Lorz took another approach when trying to go 24.85 miles through hot weather. After cramping up, he entered an auto and drove approximately 11 miles before his car quit working. Lorz then continued his path on foot until reaching the finish line and took first place.

For a brief moment, Lorz was treated as the winner. The celebration didn't last long, however, because officials learned that he'd received the automobile ride, and he was disqualified. Lorz claimed that the stunt was intended as a joke rather than a serious attempt to steal the victory, but the episode remains one of the most famous examples of cheating in Olympic history.

Thomas Hicks Had an Especially Strange Finish

The legitimate winner was American runner Thomas Hicks, but his path to victory wasn't exactly conventional. As Hicks struggled during the final portion of the race, his support team gave him a mixture containing strychnine and egg whites, followed later by another dose accompanied by brandy. Strychnine was used medicinally in small doses at the time, but it's now recognized as a highly poisonous substance.

Hicks' handlers also refused to give him the large amounts of water you might expect today. Instead, they sponged him with warm distilled water and tried to keep him moving. By the final miles, Hicks was reportedly hallucinating and struggling to stay upright, yet the combination of stimulants, care from his handlers, and sheer determination kept him going.

Legend has it that his handlers were actually carrying Hicks to the finish line and his legs were running on their own. He finished the marathon in 3 hours, 28 minutes, 53 seconds, and doctors took about an hour to help him after he finished the race.

The remarkable thing is that Hicks' victory wasn't considered improper under the rules of the time. Olympic regulations didn't yet have the modern framework governing performance-enhancing drugs, and the use of strychnine as a stimulant wasn't prohibited in the way it would be today. The race therefore produced a bizarre situation in which a runner could receive substances now considered unacceptable and still officially win.

There was much controversy surrounding this marathon. Some argued that we should not hold marathons because of this, and one of the head founders of the games in St. Louis, James Sullivan, wanted the marathon to not return to the games. It did return to the Olympic Games in 1908.

Looking back, it's easy to focus on the cheating, questionable medical treatment, wild dogs, stolen rides, and painful conditions. Yet the race is also a fascinating snapshot of how different Olympic competition was before modern standards for distance, hydration, sports medicine, course design, and anti-doping rules existed. The 1904 marathon wasn't beautiful because it was well organized; it was memorable because the athletes somehow kept going through a race that seemed determined to make everything as difficult as possible.