The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1908-08-01
AMERICANS
WINNERS
STAR EVENT IN OLYMPIC GAMES
GOES TO THE UNITED
STATES.
British Runners, Who Expected Vie
tory In Great Marathon Race, Far
in Rear-Italian Racer Drops just
a. Victory Is In Sight.

a. Victory Is In Sight.
London. July 25.-The Marathon
race, the star event of the Olympic
games, was won yesterday by John F.
Hayes, an American runner. It would
be no exaggeration in the minds Of
any of the 100000 spectators who wit
messed the finishing struggle Of the
race at the Olympic arena to say that
it was the most thrilling athletic event
that has occurred since that Mara
thon race in ancient Greece where
the victor fell dead at the goal during
the wave of triumph.
The veteran athletes of Europe,
America, Africa and Australia, who
have seen the greatest struggles Of
every sort on land and water for ath-
letic supremacy, declared that there
was nothing comparable to the great
race yesterday within their memories
or in other Olympias since the mod
ern cycle of these began.
1t was spectacle the like of which
none living had ever seen. The race
itself, with fifty-eight best men win
moved from the runners of four con-
tinents competing; the arena, where
it was finished in the presence of an
enormous cosmopolitan assemblage,
with the queen of England, the royal
representatives of several nations and
hosts of finely dressed men and wom-
en- from the most fashionable circles
of Europe, as well as several thousand
Americans, and the dramatic and ex-
citing denouement at the end COM
bined to make historic day.
Resentment Forgotten.
It was an American day, and the re-
sentiments of the day before, which
ranked strongly in the breasts of the
Americans here when they came to
the stadium in the afternoon, were for
gotten, not only in the victory of John
F. Hayes, the Irish-American Athletic
Club runner, but in the splendid rec
ord made by the other Americans,
who were well to the front in the
lines of those that finished
Since the beginning of the Olympic
games the great rivalry has been be-
tween England and America, and
while the minor competitions on the
track and field between the two ma
tons were fought out, Englishmen
consoled themselves for all the Amer
lean successes by the thought that in
the domain of distance running they
always have been supreme and what
ever prize they failed to grasp in this,
the colonials would pick up.
The sequel may be told briefly. Six
Americans started in the Marathon
race and nine English runners. Of
the first ten men to reach the COW
eted goal, four were Americans, and
they are officially placed as follows:
Hayes. first; Joseph Forshaw, Mis-
souri, Athletic Club, third; A. R. Wei
ton, Lawrence Y. M. C. A., fourth, and
Lewis Tewanina, the Carlisle Indian,
ninth.
The second man was Hefferon, of
south Africa. He was the Oldest
among the runners, having thirty-four
years to his credit, and he made re-
markable race almost to the end of
the twenty-six miles of the struggle,
but Hayes was the better man.
Distance Too Short.
Friends Of Hefferon explain that he
is at his best at forty miles, and that
yesterdays event was too short for
him, but certainly he is one of the
most wonderful runners in the world.
The first Englishman who crossed
the line came in twelfth. He was w.
r. Clarke and was not one of those
counted on to win. Duncan, the for
mer English champion, who won the
preliminary English trial, fell out at
the twelfth mile and, like several 9TH
er contestants, was taken into motor
car and brought to the stadium.
The race is not only triumph for
the United States, but in a larger
sense for America, because seven OF
the leaders at the end were from
North America. The three Canadians,
Woode, the Indian; Simpson and Law
son, finished fifth, sixth and seventh,