The 1904 Olympics Was Messed Up, This is Why

hey 42 here in 1904 the World's Fair was held in st. Louis Missouri to celebrate the Louisiana Purchase 100 years earlier when the United States purchased the enormous territory of Louisiana from France for a pitiful sum of fifteen million dollars part of the celebrations was to holding at the 1904 Summer Olympics this was the first time the still young United States had hosted the Olympics and so it should have been the grandest sporting event of the century after all affair itself was magnificent but in actuality the 1904 Olympics was two strangest Olympics in history and tells a story of poison medical malfeasance and cheating so unbelievable you couldn't make it up but before I reveal what really happens that year do you want to know what I've always wanted to do become a law of my very own medieval castle and that's exactly what I've been having gloated fun during recently playing hustle castle you have kindly sponsored today's video in hostile Castle you can build your very own castle and expand it exactly how you want to once you train peasants to become fearsome warriors you can do that want to send out your fighters to battle orcs giant skeletons and Dragons you can do that too I've been having so much fun training up my castle dwellers to become powerful fighters it's always exciting when you open a mythical chest because you can get epic purple weapons and sometimes if you're really lucky legendary orange weapons I just got this awesome legendary axe which I used to absolutely destroy this boss my tip to you is to always leave one of your dwellers in the training room to level up whilst you send your other fighters out to battle what I love most about hustle castle it's the engaging storyline the characters are so funny and the animations have this really unique cartoon style which I just think looks absolutely brilliant oh and the music is just so addictive it really draws you in and makes you feel like a badass medieval Lord you can find my clan in-game under the name 40 - be sure to hop into game join my clan today and slay some orcs download hustle castle via mine link below enter your nickname and get a special bonus for new players 250 diamonds and 3500 gold pieces I know you won't regret it and I'll see you in game right from the start it wasn't looking good because of recent russo-japanese war tensions and difficulty getting to st. Louis which involved a 1,000 mile train journey the vast majority of the foreign contestants who were invited to compete failed to show up one of the headline event was the marathon but it turned out to be one of the most scandalous events in the history of sports let's set the ugly scene by taking a quick look at some of the marathon contestants there were only 32 runners in total from four nations most were former Boston Marathon winners or hopefuls but there were also some truly bizarre characters that turned up that year in st. Louis such as Fred lorz a bricklayer from New York who did all of his training in the dead of night because of his profession he wore a paid trip to compete in the Olympic marathon as a prize for placing first in a local amateur 5-mile race then there were 10 Greek contestants who had never run a marathon in their lives plus two members of the South African to Swarna tribe who showed up in bare feet and my personal favorite contestant was an absolute nut job from Cuba Felix kabaah ha also known as under in kabah ha Felix was a mailman who dreamed of competing at the Olympic marathon so during his postal rounds he would raise money for his trip to America asking people to sponsor him remarkably he was successful and sure enough in 1904 his bags were packed and he was on his way to st. Louis but what did he do with all that sponsorship money well he made it as far as New Orleans and spent it all on drinking and gambling yes every penny he was forced to make the rest of his journey by hitchhiking country key across the wilderness at least it was good practice for him this legend arrived at the starting post of the race dressed in a bar a long-sleeve shirt full-length dress trousers and heavy hiking boots completely opposite to the rest of the contestants who were sporting much lighter clothing and footwear Felix took the smart decision to hastily cut the bottom half of his trousers off to fashion them into shorts before the race began the course was 24.8 5 miles the roads if you can call him that snaked up and down punishingly steep inclines and declines across a total of seven hills at one point the route passed directly through the center of town across a busy road where runners had to dodge speeding two-way traffic and a horde of pedestrians most of the ground along the route was absolutely thick with dust and loose Jacky stones that cut into the runners feet this dust would soon be the undoing of one particular contestant to add insult to injury it was a brutally hot August day and temperatures soared up to 33 degrees Celsius at Frio 3 p.m. the starting pistol fired and they were off immediately the runners kicked up dried dirt and dust into the air choking the lungs of everyone even the spectators to make matters even worse these were the very early days of automobiles and the event organisers had fought it a wise idea to ask to support vehicles to drive a few meters in front of the runners throughout the race the car wheels of course kicked up a tremendous cloud of dust that the runners had no choice but to run directly into and breathe in this officiating cloud caused major issues all the runners were struggling and had all slowed down way below their usual pace the event organisers had only placed one water stop along the course a water tower at the six mile mark so they had very little opportunity to ease their suffering as he will soon learn there was a sudden inconsiderate reason the organisers only provide water stopped not logged into the race the combination of dehydration and dust clouds almost caused the first ever modern Olympic marathon death after 19 miles William Garcia of California collapsed at the side of the road and began coughing up copious quantities of blood he would have died right there and then if not for a passing bystander who picked him up and took him to the hospital where it was discovered that the fine road dust had flooded into his lungs and coated his esophagus in a thick layer it had also destroyed his stomach lining and was eating away at his insides like sandpaper he had a near fatal internal hemorrhage the dust caused another contender John Lordan to start vomiting and so he gave up and went home how were the South African runners getting on you may be wondering not a lot better one of them Len tau had been chased miles off course by her pack of wild dogs which is not typically something you see today on televised Olympic marathons what about my spiritual hero of this story Felix Cavanaugh how is he faring well I'm pleased to say pretty well Fred Laws the bricklayer was in the lead but Felix was not far behind him in his cumbersome dress clothes he repeatedly stopped at the side of the road to chat to spectators when he reached a busy crosstown traffic section of the race he flagged down a passing car he had noticed they were munching on peaches and Felix rava fancying one himself asked if he could have one but they refused so Felix reached into the car grabs two peaches and ran away in fact Felix was far more concerned with devouring fruit than actually winning the race you know that's very race he had begged and fundraised just to be a part of because a little while later having finished his peaches he ran off the road into a nearby orchard and ate a few apples he plucked from a tree little did he know before it was too late they were rotten inside and gave him awful stomach cramps so he curled up on the floor and slept them off this allowed another some Mela to overtake him and so he and Fred lorz were now in second and first place respectively but then Mela was also attacked by about two stomach cramps probably from the dust not rotten apples so just gave up on the race then at the nine mile marker Fred loss still in the lead also succumbed to stomach cramps and exhaustion did he give up not quite he jumped into one of the support vehicles at the side of the road and caught a lift for the next eleven miles after which he got out of the car and ran the remaining four point eight five miles back to the finish line at the stadium acting coy as though his automobile based shortcut never happened he confidently waved at the pensive crowds and ripped through the unbroken tape of the finish line to claim first place his time was three hours 13 minutes wars initially acted as though he hadn't cheated but then a spectator came forward just as the president's daughter Alice Roosevelt who is lowering a wreath and gold medal around his neck to the adoration of cheering crowds the spectator loudly uncovered his eleven mile car journey and laws quickly changed his tune he claimed he had only done it as a joke and never intended to actually claim the win sure the crowd instantly become booing him in the officials revoked his win so who was the real winner of the 1904 Olympic marathon well that would be Thomas Hicks an English American brass worker for Massachusetts at 10 miles in Hicks was exhausted severely dehydrated and begging for water he passed the only water stop four miles ago but no matter how much he pleaded with his two handlers for a drink they point blankly refused all they did was sponge out his mouth with warm water the reason well the events chief organiser James Edward Sullivan one of the founders of the Amateur Athletic Union was secretly using the race as an experiment on the effects of four dehydration that's why he had only allowed one war to stop at six miles and chose a choking Li hot and dry summer day for the run longer routes that he knew was perilously dusty and strewn with rocks the evil bastard had ideas that purposeful dehydration would somehow allow athletes to perform better of course we now know it to be quite the opposite and dehydration can all too easily be fatal so Hicks was being refused water and had a warm damp sponge shoved into his mouth but it gets even worse his handlers then made him drink a homemade mix of egg whites and strychnine yes what you're thinking is correct strychnine is a poison and a deadly one of that it only takes a small dose to kill a man you see at this time the Olympics and most professional sports events for that matter had no anti-doping laws it wouldn't be until 1928 until the first such rules were introduced and it was commonly believed that in small doses strychnine was a stimulant that enhanced athletes performance strychnine works by interfering with and stopping the nerve signals that communicate with the muscles in your body slowly the muscles including the heart shuts down now it may just be me but he isn't a poison that shuts down muscles the very last thing on the planet you would want to give a runner only a few miles out from the finish line of an Olympic marathon sure enough the poisonous cocktail began to ravage Hix body and shut it down he had to be held up by his two handlers which at this point in time was also not forbidden in the Olympics they were practically dragging him along with his limp legs drooping in his feet trailing behind him in the dust but hearing news that laws had just been disqualified from the race and with the first-place still up for grabs Hicks found a second wind his trainers fought fantastic what a wonderful opportunity to poison him yet again that's right at this point they gave him yet another deadly cocktail of strychnine and this time they allowed him a swig of brandy to wash it down and they rinsed off his body and head with warm water with his muscles locking up and beginning to spasm and his complexion as pale as death Hicks fought through the poison dust and heat and over the last two miles of the race his pace began to quicken hallucinating he thought that the finish line was yet another 20 miles away he repeatedly begged his handlers for water and arrest but they refused and continued to push him along by the time they reached the stadium his handlers practically carried him across the finish line nevertheless he was declared the winner not that Hicks knew about it he had collapsed on the floor inches from death but mercifully he was saved by four doctors and an hour later he had regained his composure and consciousness Hicks would overtime 3 hours and 28 minutes which is the slowest Olympic marathon time in history in fact the since lowest was a whole half hour faster demonstrating how to leap bizarre and punishing to all of the contestants this 1904 event truly was our good old Cuban friend Felix kavaja had now woken up and despite pissing about pinching peaches for motorists and taking a nap he still managed to come in fourth place though his finishing time is unknown it's thought that if he hadn't have taken enough he probably would have won so the winner of the United States first Olympic marathon was a man who was poisoned twice along the route and he was only slightly ahead of a man who cracked jokes with bystanders and took a nap under a tree was an absolute shambles the 1904 Olympic Maroof turned out to be but my god I don't think there will ever be another one quite like it ever again thanks for watching and thanks again to hustle castle for sponsoring this video don't forget to download the game using the special link in the description

Channel: Thoughty2

Views: 1,430,820

Keywords: olympic, olympics, 1904, strange, odd, bizarre, unusual, weird, event, poison, documentary, history, st louis, usa, olympic games, olympic medal, summer olympics, athletics

Id: HXJ1athZrUU

Length: 15min 30sec (930 seconds)

Published: Fri May 22 2020