It was supposed to be the most prestigious event of the 1904 Olympic Games in St. Louis, a showcase of grit, stamina, and human endurance. What unfolded instead was closer to a hallucination than a sporting event.
The temperature crossed 32°C. The organisers had a medical theory: let the runners dehydrate. The roads weren’t closed. Wild dogs, thick dust, and moving cars all shared the route. One runner passed out. One was chased off course. One hopped in a car. Another was fed rat poison. The guy who officially won hallucinated his way to the finish line. And that’s just the beginning.
Part 1: The Worst Conditions Ever Invented (On Purpose)
Held alongside the 1904 World’s Fair, the marathon felt less like a sporting event and more like a bizarre endurance experiment. Back then, Olympic rules permitted runners to receive assistance from race officials, a loophole that opened the door for questionable tactics. But the organizers went a step further: they wanted to study the effects of deliberate dehydration. The result? Just one freshwater station across a brutal 25-mile (40.2 km) course.
The dusty Missouri roads were open to horses, wagons, cars, and spectators, which turned the air into a choking soup of dirt. Most runners struggled to breathe, and one nearly died from internal bleeding caused by inhaling the dust.
Part 2: A Car Ride, a False Winner, and a Cheating Scandal
Fred Lorz, an American runner, was the first to cross the finish line. He broke the tape, posed for photos, and was nearly awarded gold, until it was revealed he had ridden in a car for 11 miles, waving at fans along the way. His reason? Cramps. When exposed, he claimed it was “just a joke.” He was banned for life (but reinstated the next year).
Part 3: The Actual Winner Was Dying on His Feet
The man who was ultimately declared the winner, Thomas Hicks, didn’t exactly cross the line unaided or untainted. His handlers dosed him mid-race, not once but at least twice, with a mix of egg whites, brandy, and strychnine (yes, actual rat poison) to keep him going.
Hicks began hallucinating, begged repeatedly for food and water, and at one point became convinced he was running on the wrong path. By the final stretch, he could barely move. And it was his trainers, who physically carried him across the finish line. It took 4 doctors and nearly an hour before he was stable enough to even stand after that.
Part 4: A Street-Clothed Cuban Postman and a Rotten Apple
Then came Felíx Carvajal, a Cuban postman who arrived late and had to run in street shoes and cut-off trousers. Mid-race, he spotted some spectators enjoying peaches inside a car. He politely asked for one, got denied, laughed, and cheekily grabbed two anyway, munching as he ran. Not long after, he wandered into an orchard, helped himself to a few apples… which, unfortunately, were rotten. He threw up, lay down for a quick nap under a tree, got up again, and still finished fourth.
Part 5: The Aftermath No One Talks About
Only 14 of 32 runners finished the race. South African athlete Len Tau was chased a mile off course by a wild dog. One runner, William Garcia, came dangerously close to becoming the marathon’s first fatality. About 8 miles from the finish, he collapsed on the roadside, bleeding internally. Thick clouds of dust, kicked up by support vehicles had coated his throat and torn through his stomach lining, triggering severe hemorrhaging. Doctors later said if he’d gone another hour without help, he likely would’ve died. The disaster was so extreme, it forced Olympic officials to completely rethink how marathons were run — from hydration strategy to basic race-day safety.
It wasn’t just a bad race, it was a surreal, dangerous spectacle… and a turning point in sports history.
