Are we there yet?

Did you watch the London marathon on Sunday? If so, you might have wondered why the course distance for this event is set at 26 miles and 385 yards (42.195 km in new money). Why not a nice round number? The marathon is of course based on the (probably mythological) account of a messenger who was said to have run from the battlefield of Marathon in ancient Greece to Athens (about 26 miles) to bring news of victory, and having done so died of exhaustion. When the modern Olympics were founded in the late 19th century, a marathon race was included. Initially, there was no fixed distance - it just had to be a course of around 26 miles. In 1908 the Olympics were held in London, and for various reasons - not least in order to have the finish line directly underneath the Royal box - the course measured 26 miles, 385 yards. This race generated enormous public interest, because it was the race where famously Dorando Pietri, an Italian runner approached the finish line in the lead but in a state of complete physical exhaustion and was helped for the last few yards by officials - and as a result promptly disqualified in favour of the second-place American runner Johnny Hayes. This generated a series of rematches between the two of them, which were of course held over the same distance, and so when in 1921 the relatively new IAAF decided to set a standard length for the event they chose to accept this rather strange distance.