OLYMPIC GAMES STOCKHOLM 1912 ORIGINAL POSTCARD NO:211 DEPICTING THE
MARATHON EVENT
SUPERB ORIGINAL VINTAGE OFFICIAL STOCKHOLM OLYMPIC GAMES 1912 POSTCARD,
PUBLISHED BY GRANSBERGS OF STOCKHOLM, THE POSTCARD CAPTIONED TO THE REVERSE BORDERS
WITH DETAILS OF THE IMAGE, THIS EXAMPLE IS CARD NUMBER 211 ‘(CHRISTIAN) GITSHAM
RND IN THE MARATHON RACE’, AND IS IN VERY GOOD CLEAN CONDITION, PLEASE REFER TO
THE DETAILED IMAGES ABOVE.
The men's marathon was a track and field athletics
event held as part of the 1912 Stockholm Summer Olympics programme. The
distance used for the race was 40.2 kilometres long, which was more akin to the
1896 (40 km), 1900 (40.26 km), and 1904 (40 km) courses than the previous 1908
course (42.195 km) which would become standard to this day. As with all
marathons, the competition was a single race, held on Sunday, July 14th,
1912. Ninety-five runners entered, but only 68 runners (from 19 nations)
competed and with conditions described as "very hot", only 36 of the
68 competitors finished. THE EVENT WAS WON BY KEN McARTHUR OF SOUTH AFRICA,
THE NATION’S FIRST OLYMPIC MARATHON VICTORY, SOUTH AFRICA ALSO HAD THE
RUNNER-UP, CHRISTIAN GITSHAM. This event also saw the first Olympic
fatality, as Francisco Lazaro collapsed during the race, and died in
hospital the next morning, while another runner, Shizo Kanakuri, dropped out of
the race and returned home to Japan without notifying race officials. This was
the fifth appearance of the event, which is one of 12 athletics events to have
been held at every Summer Olympics. The field was strong. Sweden and the United
States each entered full 12-man teams; the American team included 1911 Boston
Marathon winner Clarence DeMar, 1912 Boston winner Michael J Ryan, and 1908
Olympic bronze medallist Joseph Forshaw.
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