A GREAT RUNNER

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 123, 27 May 1930, Page 6

A GREAT RUNNER

UNITED STATES MARATHON

DE MAR'S SEVENTH WIN

(From "The Post's" Representative.) NEW YORK, Ist May.

Men in their forties who are haunted with the fear that they have passed their physical prime can take heart from the amazin; performance of Clarence dc ' Mar, veteran : of marathon races, who has just won, for the seventh time, the Boston road race of twenty: six miles in the presence of 500,000 p,eople massed along the course. ' As a youth of 22, do Mar won the •race in 1911, on his second entry. Twelve times he entered; seven times he won. His present time of 2hrs 34 mm, is his fastest, and only a minute behind the record set last year by Johnny: Miles, bf Canada. t I)e Mar, who is an instructor at a New Jersey Normal School, led a big field at fourteen miles, and holding his advantage, ■ won by 500 yds from another veteran marathoner, Willie Ky- . -nen, a Finn. Karl iKoski, another Finn, was third. Both these sons of Finland finished in the same places a year ago. Fourth was Webster, of Hamilton, Canada; fifth ituotsalincn, Finlander; sjxth O'Toole, of Newfoundland, who ran the last five miles in his stockinged feet; seventh Semple, of Philadelphia; eighth' Heuigan, of Massachusetts; ninth M'Lennan, of Nova Scotia;, tenth- Norman, of . Massachusetts. 'Johnny Miles was eleventh; , Of 184 starters, 93 finished the course.

De Mar -won the race in 1911, 1922,' 1923, 1924, 1927, 1928, and 1930. He was second in 1910 and 1925, third in 1917 and 1920. Only once was he unplaced. He served overseas in the war years. In the twenty marathons that have been run, but two others have won the race twice.

It was the London race which gave the United States the standard marathon distance of 26 milea 385 yards. The Marathon to Athens route was a little under 25 ■ miles: Marathon distances varied until ,190S, when it was found that the course from» Windsor Castle to the London Stadium was 26 miles 385 yards, which has been adopted ever since. The ancient race, in which- Pheidippides dropped dead at "the finish, lino in 46.0 8.C., was revived in 1896, when the Olympic Games were revived in Athens over the legendary course. Marathon runners do not drop dead now, thanks to medical supervision. A collapse: that caused the greatest excitement was Dorando 'a fall within the. Stadium walls in 1 London in the Olympic race of 1908. Staggering, falling, and rising, *Dorando, well in the lead, was finally carried across'!the finish, and later disqualified, after some bitter controversy, because of this assistance. ' ■ . L '