McArthur sets Olympic marathon record

July 14 1912 South African Ken McArthur, 31, a Potchefstroom policeman, runs an Olympic-record marathon (2:36:54.8) over 40.2km in sweltering heat in Stockholm, Sweden. Starting at 1.48pm (this year’s Paris Olympics marathon will start at 8am), only 36 of the 68 competitors (from 19 nations) finish the race. McArthur and his teammate Christian Gitsham run together and soon take the lead. Gitsham, confident of a victory, stops for water, expecting his compatriot to join him, as agreed. However, McArthur runs on and beats Gitsham by 58 seconds. (Picture taken on the day.) Since then, no country has produced the gold and silver medallists in the Olympic marathon. In the next season, McArthur injures his foot in an accident and is forced to retire from athletics. Kennedy Kane McArthur was born in Dervock, County Antrim, Ireland, on February 10 1881. Though recognised a promising athlete as a teenager, he didn’t pursue an athletics career until after emigrating to South

Africa in 1901 at the age of 20. After joining the Johannesburg Police Force in 1906, he began to take athletics seriously. He soon won the Transvaal half- and one-mile championships, the five-mile track championship and two national cross-country championships. He ran his first marathon late in the 1908 season, and surprisingly beat the that year’s Olympic silver medallist Charles Hefferon. He also won the national one- and 10-mile championships. He runs six marathon races (including the Olympics) in his career and never loses one.