Article
The 1904 Olympic Marathon: Strychnine, a Car Ride, and the Weirdest Race in History
On August 30, 1904, at 3:03 PM, a starting pistol fired on what would become the most bizarre marathon in Olympic history. Thirty-two men lined up in St. Louis on a 90°F afternoon. Only 14 finished. One had hitched a car ride. One stopped for a nap. And the winner — Thomas Hicks — crossed the finish line hallucinating and barely conscious, fueled by strychnine, raw eggs, and brandy. [^1]
This is the story of that race. It's not a feel-good sports story. It's a case study in bad science, organizational chaos, and just how far people will go to win.
The worst conditions ever designed
The 1904 Olympics were held alongside the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (the St. Louis World's Fair), and the marathon was organized by James E. Sullivan, head of the Physical Culture Department. Sullivan had unconventional views on athletic training. He believed that drinking fluids during exercise upset the stomach — so he placed just one water station on the course at mile 12, on a 40-kilometer (24.85-mile) route run in 32°C (90°F) heat. [^2]
The course itself was a disaster. Runners competed on dusty country roads shared with horse-drawn carriages, delivery wagons, trolley cars, trains, and pedestrians. Race officials rode ahead and behind the runners in automobiles, kicking up thick clouds of dust that the runners had to breathe. One competitor, William Garcia, was found unconscious and suffering from severe internal injuries caused by inhaling the dust. [^3]
Only one water station existed. Sullivan was deliberately testing the limits of "purposeful dehydration" — using Olympic athletes as unwitting experimental subjects. [^2]
The cast of characters
The field of 32 was a motley assembly. Among them:
- Thomas Hicks, a brass worker from Massachusetts who had finished second in the 1903 Boston Marathon. He reportedly worked as a professional clown. [^1]
- Frederick Lorz, a bricklayer who trained at night after his day job. He'd placed in the top five at two Boston Marathons. [^4]
- Félix Carvajal, a Cuban mailman who raised money for the trip by running exhibition races, then lost it all gambling in New Orleans. He hitchhiked to St. Louis and arrived wearing a long-sleeve shirt, trousers, heavy shoes, and a hat. A fellow competitor helped cut his pants into shorts at the starting line. [^5]
- Len Taunyane and Jan Mashiani, two Tswana men from South Africa — the first Black Africans to compete in the Olympics. They were in St. Louis to perform in a Boer War reenactment at the World's Fair and had served as long-distance message runners during the Second Boer War. [^3]
- Frank Pierce of the Seneca Nation, the first Native American to compete in the Olympics. [^1]
- Three previous Boston Marathon winners (Sam Mellor, John Lordan, Michael Spring), none of whom would finish. [^7]
The ride, the nap, and the poison
As the race unfolded in the heat and dust, the events grew progressively stranger:
Frederick Lorz dropped out at 9 miles due to cramps and hitched a ride back to the stadium. His car broke down at mile 19, so he jogged the rest of the way and crossed the finish line first — greeted as the winner by Alice Roosevelt, daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt. She placed a wreath on his head. But spectators had seen him in the car. When confronted, Lorz claimed it was a practical joke. The AAU banned him for life (later commuted to six months). He went on to win the 1905 Boston Marathon. [^1] [^4]
Félix Carvajal, hungry after not having eaten in 40 hours, spotted a spectator eating peaches. He asked for one, was refused, and stole them both. Later he stopped at an orchard for apples — which turned out to be rotten. The spoiled fruit gave him severe stomach cramps, so he lay down and took a nap. He woke up, continued, and finished fourth. [^3] [^5]
Len Taunyane was chased roughly a mile off course by an aggressive dog, which cost him a better finish. (He still placed 9th.) [^3]
Thomas Hicks, the eventual winner, was given the first known instance of performance-enhancing drugs in Olympic history. About 10 miles from the finish, he was leading by 1.5 miles but was exhausted and begged to lie down. His trainers refused him water and instead administered a cocktail of strychnine sulfate (1 mg), raw egg whites, and brandy. Strychnine is a potent stimulant of motor neurons — in large doses it causes whole-body convulsions and death by asphyxiation. The lowest known lethal dose was 36 mg. Hicks was given approximately 1 mg per dose — and he received two doses. [^8]
He continued, hallucinating, barely able to walk. At the finish line at Francis Field, his support team practically carried him across, holding him upright while he shuffled his feet. He collapsed immediately. Four doctors treated him on the spot. He had lost 8 pounds (3.6 kg) during the race. Thomas Hicks lived to age 76 but never competed again. [^1] [^8]
His winning time: 3:28:53 — the slowest Olympic marathon ever by a half-hour. [^3]
The legacy
The 1904 marathon is a relic of an era when the Olympics were a chaotic sideshow, not the polished global spectacle they are today. It was an event where an organizer's pseudoscientific theory about dehydration was tested on live athletes without their consent, where the winner was a man whose trainers nearly poisoned him to death, and where a practical joke nearly awarded a gold medal to someone who'd ridden a car for 10 miles.
But within the absurdity, there are real human stories: Carvajal's determination after losing everything, the Tswana runners who crossed oceans to compete in ill-fitting shoes, Lorz's audacious hoax. These give the race a strange, crooked dignity — the kind that only comes from people who tried, failed, or cheated, but showed up anyway.
Sources
[^1]: Ashwin Rodrigues, "The Unbelievable True Story of the Craziest Olympic Marathon," Runner's World, August 6, 2021. https://www.runnersworld.com/runners-stories/a37039437/1904-olympic-marathon/ [^2]: "How the 1904 Marathon Became One of the Weirdest Olympic Events of All Time," Smithsonian Magazine, August 7, 2012. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-the-1904-marathon-became-one-of-the-weirdest-olympic-events-of-all-time-14910747/ [^3]: "Athletics at the 1904 Summer Olympics – Men's marathon," Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athletics_at_the_1904_Summer_Olympics_%E2%80%93_Men%27s_marathon [^4]: Molly Hanson, "The Most Bizarre Marathon in Olympic History," Outside Run, July 10, 2025. https://run.outsideonline.com/general/strange-running-history-the-1904-olympic-marathon/ [^5]: Kathryn Harkup, "The cocktail of poison and brandy that led to Olympic gold," The Guardian, July 21, 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2016/jul/21/the-cocktail-of-poison-and-brandy-that-led-to-olympic-gold-strychnine [^6]: "Thomas Hicks (athlete)," Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hicks_(athlete) [^8]: "Strychnine," Wikipedia (pharmacology section). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strychnine