1904 St Louis Olympics Marathon

Not sure how many of you have seen the celebrity game show QI, but it makes up for all the bad celebrity game shows. And you learn while being entertained. The episode I watched last night had a few hilarious facts about the 1904 St Louis Olympic Marathon. This is from the Wiki page:

Frederick Lorz stopped running because of exhaustion after nine miles (14.5 km). His manager gave him a lift in his car for the next eleven miles (17.7 km), but after the car broke down, Lorz continued on foot back to the Olympic stadium, where he broke the finishing tape and was greeted as the winner of the race.

Second place was essentially poisoned and carried across the line by his trainers. Fourth place stopped in an orchard to eat peaches and apples, got a stomach ache and had to lie down a while. And ninth place was chased a mile off course by a dog.

Why can't the modern olympics be more like that? More information at the following site:

http://www.uselessinformation.org/st_louis_olympics/index.html

Sympathy post.

How is that real?

Hardcore.