The Origin of the Word 'Marathon'

By Chike Nnamani

Many times we use the word 'marathon' to describe the rate of speed of something such as in 'marathon race' which is an event or competition in athletic meetings, but we don't actually know how it came about.

The mischievous Nigerian journalists have even gone further to applying it inappropriately when reporting news of a man who died having illicit affair with a woman. You will see them with such heading as: "Married man die having 'marathon sex' with his lover in hotel room."

The competition called 'marathon race' was named after an incident which happened at the famous 'Battle of Marathon' in ancient Greeks in 5th century.

In 490 B.C., during the Persian rule, King Darius I, one of the greatest ruler of the Persian Empire, tried to conquer the mainland Greeks, but after some success, his army was halted at the Battle of Marathon.

When the Persian forces attacked the Greeks, and the people of Athens found themselves in danger of defeat, they sent messages to their allies for help. A very fast runner called PHEIDIPPIDES was sent to Sparta; he ran this distance in two days.

But the Spartans could not come immediately, and before they could arrive, the Athenians defeated the Persians at Marathon. Pheidippides was again sent to Athens to announce the victory to the people at home. HE RAN NON-STOP. As soon as he had reported the good news, he collapsed and died!

The athletic competition, marathon race, is one of the events that takes place in modern Olympic Games, which was a revival of the ancient Greek Olympic Games. It was revived in Athens in 1896.

From 776 B.C., in ancient Greek, competitors from different city states met once in every four years for athletic competitions. It was called 'Olympic' or 'Olympian Games', because the city in which the games were held was called Olympia.