The Smithsonian is not just a group of museums to visit in the USA. It’s also a magazine/website, and as you would expect from its focus on history it almost always has interesting stories to tell.
 
 
How strange? Let me count the ways.
 
The first place finisher did most of the race in a car. He’d intended to drop out, and got a car back to the stadium to get a change of clothes, then just got out and started jogging to the finish line when he heard the fanfare.
 
The second place finisher was carried across the finish line by his trainers, with his legs “twitching”, which they claimed meant they were technically still moving. Twitching sounds about right when you consider that they’d not only refused to give him water during the race, but had supplyed him with a mixture of Brandy and Rat Poison. Doping was not yet illegal of course so he won the event when the first place joke was revealed.
 
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Fourth finisher was a Cuban mailman who had raised the money to attend the Olympics by running non-stop around Cuba. But after he landed in New Orleans he lost the lot on a riverboat casino. He ran the race in dress shoes and long trousers cut at the knee by a helpful competitor. He almost certainly would have won the race (excluding car guy) had he not taken an hour-long nap on the side of the course after eating rotten apples that found there.
 
 
The 9th and 12th finishers were from South Africa and ran barefoot. Their nation did not actually send a delegation; these guys were students who were in town and thought it sounded like fun. One of them was chased a mile off course by dogs. They were the first Africans in any modern Olympic event,
 
Half of the runners had never raced competitively in their lives.
 
St Louis only had one water stop on the entire trip. Combining that with the road being dusty – exacerbated by cars kicking up dust – led to some of the runners dying.
 
The Russian delegation arrived a week late, because they were still using the Julian calender in 1904.
 
This needs to be made into a movie, either by Josh Whedon or Wes Anderson.