Beginner • sports
The Origin of Marathon
113 words • Estimated 1 min read
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The marathon is a long-distance running race with an official distance of 26.2 miles. The race is named after a Greek town called Marathon. Legend says that in 490 BC, a Greek soldier named Pheidippides ran all the way from the battlefield of Marathon to Athens. He ran to deliver the news that the Greeks had won a major battle against the Persians. After running the entire distance without stopping, he gasped the victory news and died of exhaustion. To honor his heroic run, the organizers of the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 included a long-distance race. Today, millions of runners participate in marathons around the globe, testing their limits of endurance.
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