White City Stadium

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The stadium built at White City in west London for the 1908 Olympic Games, opened on 27 April 1908 with a capacity of about 93,000, and the eastern end of the line that fixed the marathon distance. The final 385 yards of the 1908 course were run inside it, to a finish placed in front of the royal box — that part of the story is not in dispute, and it is the part that produced the odd remainder. The stadium hosted athletics, swimming, boxing, show jumping, later greyhound and speedway racing and a 1966 World Cup match, and was demolished in 1985 for BBC development. The 1908 finish line is marked in the paving outside the building that replaced it, which makes the site the physical anchor of a distance now run on every continent.