The history of the marathon race

1. The History of the Marathon Race
The Marathon Race is a running race of 42,195 km. It is included in the Olympic Games
program from the first time they took place, in Athens, in 1896 . Along with the 100m
race, they are the two most popular track racing events.
In ancient years, there was no Marathon event, nor any other similar event . The idea for
its creation belongs to the French philologist Michel Breal (1832-1951) , who persuaded
his friend, Pierre de Coubertin to include it in the program of the First Olympic Games, in
Athens, in memory of the victory of the Greeks against the Persians in Marathon (490BC) .

2. This victory was announced to the Athenians by a runner named Pheidippides, who gave
out the yell "Νενικήκαμεν" (which means "we've won" ) , just before drawing his last
breath , after he had run the whole way from the battlefield in Marathon to Athens .
The first Marathon race took place on March 10th 1896, during the First Hellenic Track
and Field Games , and it was a qualifying event , for the Athens Olympics which followed.
The winner of this race was Harilaos Vasilakakos, and his time was 3 hours and 18
minutes. A few days later, on March 29th, the famous Spyros Louis won the first Olympic
Games Marathon Race, and his time was 2 hours, 58 minutes and 20 seconds.
From that day, the Marathon Race has been growing in popularity and today it is one of
the most popular Track and Field events. Marathon races take place not only as part of
major Sports Games, but also as single events , and they have a lot of people attend or
take part in them. (e.g. the Boston Marathon, the London Marathon, the Athens Marathon
etc. )
This year, the Athens Marathon took place on 13-11-2016, with the participation of more
than 50.000 runners, all over the world!

3. In this historical route, one of our colleagues, Mrs. Kallimani Pelagia took place and
shared her experience with us about her preparation and her feelings that had during the
RACE!!!
Also, several students from our school, participated in the “Marathon for Schools” – a
distance of 1.000 meters -, which took place in MARATHON AREA, winning lots of metals,
but the most important profit for them was the consideration that …
“EVERYONE WHO RUNS IN A MARATHON IS A WINNER”!