The First Olympians 6/7: They Wouldn't Let Her Run. So She Ran Alone (1896) (The True Story of Stamata Revithi)

Tales of Life: Ordinary People, Extraordinary True Stories · Oct 24, 2026 · 5m

(00:00) A signed piece of paper

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The First Olympians, Episode 6 of 7. The true story of Stamata Revithi, a poor young mother from Piraeus who wanted to run the first Olympic marathon in 1896. The organisers refused to let her start. So the next morning she asked the teacher, the mayor and the magistrate of Marathon to sign a paper with her starting time, and ran the whole route to Athens alone, in about five and a half hours. Soldiers stopped her before the Olympic stadium, and she asked them to sign her arrival time too. Then she disappears from history. Women first ran an Olympic…