Dead or Alive: How Amateurism Shaped Marathons in Norway, 1896–1906

Abstract

The marathon in the Olympic Games in 1896 immediately inspired the sporting community both in Europe and in the United States. Some organizers sought to surpass the record set in Athens and awarded their marathon winners generously. In Norway, the main sports federation wanted to control the competition, and how it would be perceived. According to the Secretary of the Federation, the military Captain F.G. Seeberg, no participant should finish a long race in bad style, or even worse, dead. His organization managed, to some extent, to impose this partly aesthetic ideal on the many marathons during the following years. This restricted the striving for records, largely due to the shared ideology of amateurism among sportswriters and athletes. The story of marathons’ development in Norway and the rest of Scandinavia from 1896 to 1906 illuminates early cooperation and standardization in international sports, as well as national divergencies. More crucially, it details how the broader ideology of sports amateurism shaped a new long-distance running event due to its intensified attention to style.