1908 Olympic Marathon
100 years ago the Olympics paid their
first visit to Britain the marathon was
run from Windsor to London. The Marathon
course had previously been 25 miles
long. For the 1908 race the previously
agreed starting line was moved to the
Home Park at Windsor to allow the Royal
Family to view the
start;
the finishing line was not changed. The
resulting distance - 26 miles, 385 yards
- has been the standard marathon
distance ever since London. Sefton
Harrier Billy Clarke played a small part
in that historical event.
The most famous incident of the games
came at the end of the marathon. It
occurred when the first runner to enter
the stadium, Dorando Pietri of Italy,
collapsed several times and ran the
wrong way. Not far from the finish-line,
two of the officials took him by the
arms, and brought him to the line. As a
consequence, after crossing the line he
was disqualified. The medal went to
American Johnny Hayes who was second
over the line, but the glory went to
Pietri. Since he himself had not been
responsible for his disqualification
Queen Alexandra the next day awarded him
a gold cup in recognition of his
achievement.
1908
was a busy year for Billy Clarke who won
the Northern Counties cross country
title at Haydock Park and finished fifth
in the World Cross Country Championship
at Paris, where he was a scoring member
of the gold medal winning England team.
A short time later Clark was an
emphatic winner of the Liverpool Olympic
Marathon trial, but had a bad run in the
Polytechnic trial and finished well down
the order. However, he was selected for
the Olympic team on the strength of the
good overall form he had shown that
season.
In the legendary 1908 Olympic
Marathon, Clarke was an early leader but
eventually slipped back to finish in
12th position.
Nevertheless, he had the distinction
of being the first Brition to finish,
and his time of 3:16:08.6 was
an inaugural British Marathon record. In
the December of 1908 he won the Hasting
marathon from which these two photos are
from.
After that Clarke turned professional.
He improved his best marathon time to
2:51:50 on a grass track at Salisbury on
29 June 1910, and on 17 March 1911 he
was second in an indoor marathon at
Dublin in 2:41.
Known as a stylish runner, Clark
perhaps ran his best race at Navan on 4
June 1911, when he won a £75 sweepstake
over 20 miles in a time of 1:55:47.
How London shaped the
history of the marathon an extract from
John Bryant book.
Thanks to Alex Wilson for
background biography of Billy Clarke,
Photo from Charles Gains, Norman Wilson
and from Phil Thomas
'History of Northern Cross Country
Assocaition'
