The Strangest Olympic Marathon Ever — 1904 St. Louis Olympics [Video]

The 2016 Rio Olympics have gone off despite several huge SNAFUs, including the pool water turning green, several athletes being robbed at gun point and a kayaker hitting a submerged sofa while competing.

But, from an historical perspective, the Games have been smooth sailing compared to the ill-run 1904 Games in St. Louis, which featured the strangest Marathon race to date.

Only 12 nations showed up, due to international tensions and the difficulty of getting to St. Louis, which had essentially hijacked the Games from Chicago earlier in the year.

The Marathon was to have featured 41 runners to negotiate the 40 kilomenter course through the dusty country roads surrounding the city. Only 28 showed up.

The first mistake the organizers made was scheduling the event in the middle of the afternoon on a day when temperatures were to soar into the 90s. Most modern marathons are run in the cool of the morning.

The second was having the marathon officials ride up and down the course in automobiles, choking the contestants lungs with exhaust and dust. At least one competitor, William Garcia of San Francisco, passed out from the car fumes and lay near death on a country road before being discovered by officials.

Fred Lorz of the United States quit the race after nine miles and hitched a ride back to the stadium. When his ride broke down, Lorz decided to re-enter the race at the 19 mile mark and strolled into the stadium the apparent victor. He was getting ready to receive his gold medal, when his ruse was uncovered and he was disqualified.

Meanwhile, back out on the course, Len Tau of South Africa was in position to seize the lead when he was chased off the course by wild dogs. Another leader, Andarin Carjaval of Cuba, who was running in his street clothes succumbed from cramps caused by eating bad apples, which he had eaten to stave off hunger pangs caused by having not eaten 40 hours prior because he was rerouted to New Orleans by bad travel plans.

The last leader, Thomas Hicks, a Briton who had recently moved to the US, was faltering in the heat near the end, and was helped along by officials feeding him brandy laced with rat poison to keep him going. He nearly died after winning and was rushed off to the hospital by concerned medical personnel.

Hicks was ultimately declared the winner, despite protests from second place finisher Albert Corey, who was running for the US, despite the fact he was French.

But the kicker of this story may be the strangest one yet. Very little water was provided any of the contestants in the 1904 Marathon. One one well at the 11 mile mark was the only water service for the whole race. Why? Because John Sullivan, who later became the US Olympic chairman, wanted to see how the contestants would fare without it. Yup, you read right, the whole field for the 1904 Marathon was an experiment for Sullivan. He's lucky no one died.

The times of the St. Louis Marathon are the slowest in the history of the Olympics. One competitor, Carjaval, evn took a nap during the race, and still finished fourth.

I cannot do the race justice as to how weird it was, so here's a video with the whole story of the strangest Olympic Marathon ever.