The marathon distance (42.195 km / 26 miles 385 yards)

Assembled from 32 blocks · 3 evidence · 33 related

1. Story
2. The marathon is the only major athletics event whose distance is an arbitrary historical inheritance rather than a round number. It is 26 miles 385 yards, which converts to 42,194.988 metres and is conventionally written 42.195 km — the metric figure is a rounding of the imperial one, not the other way round. The distance was first run at the 1908 London Olympic Games and was not a standard at the time: Athens 1896 was about 40 km, Stockholm 1912 about 40.2 km and Antwerp 1920 about 42.75 km. The International Amateur Athletic Federation fixed the London figure as the universal marathon distance in 1921, and every marathon record since has been measured against it. Because the number is inherited rather than derived, nothing about human physiology, the length of a stadium lap or the Marathon-to-Athens road explains it.
3. Knowledge
4. The marathon distance (42.195 km / 26 miles 385 yards)
5. Calibrated bicycle course measurement
6. The 1908 Olympic marathon fixes 26 miles 385 yards
7. Connections
8. Calibrated bicycle course measurement
9. The 1908 Olympic marathon fixes 26 miles 385 yards
10. Carbon-plated road racing shoe
11. World Athletics
12. The 1908 Olympic marathon fixes 26 miles 385 yards
13. The 1908 distance becomes the world standard
14. Boston lengthens its course and moves the start to Hopkinton
15. Kelvin Kiptum runs 2:00:35 in Chicago
16. Ruth Chepngetich runs 2:09:56 in Chicago
17. Tigst Assefa sets a women-only world record in London
18. The first sub-two-hour marathon in a record-eligible race
19. The marathon distance (42.195 km / 26 miles 385 yards)
20. New York is remeasured and two world bests are voided
21. The marathon distance (42.195 km / 26 miles 385 yards)
22. Dorando Pietri
23. The first modern Olympic marathon, Marathon to Athens
24. White City Stadium
25. Windsor Castle
26. The marathon distance (42.195 km / 26 miles 385 yards)
27. Dorando Pietri
28. London
29. Evidence
30. The marathon distance is 42.195 km / 26 miles 385 yards, taken from the 1908 London Olympic course and set as the standard by the IAAF in 1921. V55 verification basis: worldathletics.org was refused by this session's network egress proxy, so the page was read only through attributed search summaries; the 1921 congress minute was not seen.
31. The 1908 Olympic marathon was run on 24 July 1908 from Windsor to the White City Stadium over 26 miles 385 yards, with 55 starters from 16 nations and 27 finishers; Dorando Pietri was disqualified and Johnny Hayes won. V55 verification basis: the Olympedia result page was identified through search and its substance read in summary; the database entry itself was not retrieved.
32. Road courses are measured by the calibrated bicycle method with a Jones counter along the shortest possible route, with a short course prevention factor of 1/1000 applied to the calibration constant. V55 verification basis: the PDF was identified and summarised through search; direct retrieval was blocked by the egress proxy and the manual was not read in full.