A lot has been made of RayGun, the Australian Break dancer who danced so (insert your adjective here) that she was the viral sensation of this year's Summer Games. But that is NOTHING compared to the chaos that was the 1904 Olympic Marathon in St. Louis. Buckle up, here we go.
40 Athletes competed, and only 14 of them finished.
Jan and Len were students from South Africa and finished 12th and 9th, respectively. They ran the marathon barefoot. Len would have finished better than he did but he was chased a mile off course by a pack of dogs because that's normal.
Oh, by the way they weren't Olympians...they were just in the area and bored.
Felix was a mailman from Cuba, he lost all of his money at a Riverboat Casino the night before. But that's not where his story ends...he finished 4th and that was after he had an issue after eating some rotten apples and having to take a 1-hour nap to recover.
2nd place was Thomas Hicks! What's his story? Well, he was dragged across the finish line by his trainers, and when I say dragged, I mean dragged. They refused to give him water and only gave him a mixture of Brandy and Rat Poison....clearly doping wasn't illegal at that point.
Now to the Gold Medalist! Fred Lorz! What an honor! Winner! Wait, he was disqualified after discovering he did most of the race in a car.
So, Thomas Hicks lifeless body was named the winner!
But wait, somehow there is more!
The Russian athletes arrived 2 weeks late after getting the dates wrong because they were still using the Julian Calander.
the 1904 St Louis Summer Olympic Marathon...the most unhinged competition of all time!