The 1904 Olympics Were BANANAS

Someone get Gwen Stefani over here to spell it out.

Howdy! It’s Joey, back with more Fun Fact Friyay. The Olympics have officially arrived—let’s look back 120 years to celebrate.

Little did these runners know what they were getting themselves into. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Thomas Hicks won the first U.S. Olympics marathon despite drinking rat poison, hallucinating, and being carried across the finish line.

The 1904 Olympics were held in St. Louis, the first time the United States had hosted the event. They coincided with the annual World’s Fair, and saying these games were bonkers is putting it lightly.

Nothing encapsulates that better than the 1904 Olympics marathon, which wasn’t even a full marathon (it was 24.85 miles instead of the standard 26.2), but that’s hardly the worst offense.

One official called the course “the most difficult a human being was ever asked to run over.” A quick highlight:

• Temperatures in the low 90s Fahrenheit (about 32-33 Celsius)

• Seven hills, some as tall as 300 feet high

• Cracked stone consistently along the path

• Runners had to weave in and out of traffic, which included people, trains, wagons, and trolleys

• Coaches and doctors rode in cars alongside the runners, knocking dust and dirt up into their faces and lungs

• Only one station with fresh water, located approximately halfway through the course

One of Hicks’s competitors was a man named Fred Lorz, who had to train at night because he was busy at his job as a bricklayer during the day. Lorz, who qualified for the nearly 25-mile run by winning a five-mile race, cramped up about nine miles in.

Rather than power through the cramps, Lorz opted to hop into one of the rides that were driving alongside the runners. He got an 11-mile lift and ultimately finished in first place.

Of course, one of the key rules of running a marathon is that you can’t use a car to get through half of it. Lorz even said he did it on a lark and wouldn’t accept the medal, which meant the race for first place was BACK ON.

Hicks, who had not hopped into a car, was dehydrated. He asked for a drink, and his coaching handlers sponged out his mouth with warm water.

With seven miles to go, he probably asked for another drink. His coaches said, “Sure, here you go,” and gave him strychnine and egg whites. It’s the first known time an athlete used performance-enhancing drugs during the Olympics.

At the time, small doses of strychnine were used as a stimulant. Today, strychnine is the key ingredient in rat poison and other pesticides.

Hicks, inflated with a hefty dose of rat poison, was running like one of those little wind-up toys. He didn’t seem to have any idea what he was doing but was determined to make it happen. His handlers felt another swig of strychnine and egg whites would help, plus a gulp of brandy.

By this point, Hicks was wildly hallucinating. He was only a mile away but thought he still had much longer to run. He wanted to eat something. He wanted to lie down. He wanted his coaches to do something that might not kill him. They obliged, lifting him up and carrying him across the finish line while he kicked his feet in the air, believing he was still running.

I imagine that scene looked something like this (pre-slamming into a cliff):

Though Hicks was the winner, my vote for “coolest cat” in this race goes to Félix Carvajal.

In Cuba, he ran around the city hall to petition the mayor to raise funds. He reportedly lost all his money playing craps in New Orleans and hitchhiked to St. Louis.

Once he arrived, he planned on running in a beret, a long billowing white shirt, and trousers. Another runner procured scissors to cut the pants at the knees, creating a hybrid pair of trouser shorts, or “trourts,” as no one calls them.

The legend himself, Félix Carvajal. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

For the most part, Carvajal was simply having a blast. He was stopping to chat with passersby, popped by a water tower along the 6th mile for a drink, charmingly stole a couple of peaches from a car, and went apple picking for additional fuel.

Unfortunately, those apples were rotten, so Carvajal experienced severe stomach cramps. He decided to do what many of us would do in a similar situation: Lay down and take a nap.

Despite all of that, he still finished in fourth place out of 32 competitors. What a trooper.

Sure, it’s impressive watching today’s athletes break records in form-fitting outfits that are basically tanktops and short shorts. But wouldn’t it be just a bit more fun if they were wearing billowing shirts, fun hats, and trourts?