It was not the passion for racing that motivated her at the start of 1896, but necessity. In the last two years, Stamáta Revíthi (born 1866) lost her husband and then a child. Destitute, the young widow was unable to provide her eldest son with the care necessary for his survival. Determined to find a job in Athens so that her other child, born seventeen months earlier, does not suffer the same fate, Stamáta Revíthi must travel the 9 kilometers that separate the port of Piraeus, where she lives, from the center of Athens.
She walks briskly, holding her baby firmly in the crook of her arms. Intrigued, a runner stops. Sports historian Athanasios Tarasouleas reports the scene based on accounts recorded in the press – who nicknamed her Melpomene, muse of tragedy in Greek mythology. To the man surprised to see her undertake such a journey wearing wooden shoes and with a young child, Stamata explains her situation. The stranger, touched by his story, gives him money and advises him to register for the marathon event of the first modern Olympic Games.
Two years earlier, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) founded by Pierre de Coubertin chose Athens to host the event. The event was designed in homage to the messenger Philippides who, in 490 BC, is said to have run from Marathon to Athens to announce the victory of the Greeks over the Persians during the battle of the same name. Legend has it that he traveled the forty kilometers separating the village of Marathon from Athens without stopping and then delivered his message while breathing his last.
The one who puts on a show
But the rules of the modern Games are strict: in the spirit of fair play, professional athletes will be excluded. Just like the women, whom Coubertin refuses to see participate in the events. The Baron does not approve “the participation of women in public competitions”he declares. On the other hand, he tolerates their sporting practice, provided that they avoid “to make a spectacle of oneself”adding that“at the Olympic Games, their role should be above all, as in ancient tournaments, to crown the winners”.
However, the idea appealed to Stamáta Revíthi. As a child, her speed surprised (even annoyed) certain members of the so-called strong sex, which she found amusing. She therefore persisted and arrived in Marathon the day before the race (March 29, 1896, or April 10, 1896 according to the Gregorian calendar). The village mayor, seeing her ready to camp, offers her hospitality. Journalists who had come to question the rare participants (seventeen men of five different nationalities) rushed towards her. The runners’ sporty outfits contrast with the figure of the young widow, her movements hampered by her heavy dark skirt and blouse.
Greek and foreign reporters barely mask their disbelief. “Are you going to run to Athens?”they ask him. Stamáta Revíthi has a good sense of repartee and a touch of arrogance: “And you?” How does she hope to convince the committee to let her compete? If they refuse, she will still run. And it will take less than four hours to get there, she promises them.
A competitor jokes: she will arrive when the crowd has already dissipated… Stamata asks her to “don’t insult women” and reminds him of a crushing defeat recently inflicted on the Greek runners by the Americans. Can the young woman survive without refueling during the race, journalists worry? Answer from the person concerned: she breastfed her young son for many months while her own stomach growled.
Blessing forbidden to women
His determination is then no longer in doubt and fuels the annoyance of the committee members. The attitude of the runners, like that of the journalists, reinforces Pierre de Coubertin’s point of view: women are free to “play football or box”but their partially naked and sweaty bodies must remain hidden from view “because the spectators who gather around such competitions do not come there to see sport”. Coubertin’s remarks must be evaluated in the light of the context of this era which did not grant any individual freedom to women, underlines one of his descendants, president of the Pierre de Coubertin Family Association.
Stamáta Revíthi asks the local priest to bless her, which he refuses to do: this privilege will be reserved for officially registered athletes. But the Olympic committee does not intend to give in to the whims of a woman! Under pressure, the widow capitulates, against the promise of allowing her to participate in another event, alongside the American team.
Was she still alive in 1912 when women were allowed to take part in two swimming events and one diving event in Stockholm?
But Revíthi understands that this carrot is fanciful. The next day, Saturday March 30 (April 11 according to the Gregorian calendar) at 8 a.m., one day after the official event, she began the marathon course alone. Before leaving, the mayor, the village teacher and a lawyer record the time of his departure at his request.
Around 1:30 p.m., her clothes soaked with sweat and her face black with dust, she met non-commissioned officers in Athens who agreed to certify her time of arrival. But why did she put herself through such a long journey? So that her name is known and that the king one day provides a job for his child, she explains to them. His exploit will inevitably make his name known to everyone. Feeling in a defiant mood, she adds: “I would have gotten there in three hours if I hadn’t stopped to look at boats.”
From the 19th to the 21st century, the legacy of Melpomene
But Stamáta Revíthi does not take the time to rest. With her shoes in hand, she resumes her run in front of the taken aback men: she must go to meet the secretary general of the Hellenic Olympic Committee, Timoleon Philimon, and urge him to make her results official. But he was refused entry to the Panathenaic Stadium.
There is no trace of a subsequent meeting, nor of any possible consequences for Revíthi. The day before, Spyrídon Loúis finished the marathon which revived the ancient Games in two hours and fifty-eight minutes. Celebrated as a hero, the Greek water carrier entered legend and many doors were suddenly opened to him.
On the other hand, the legend of the barefoot marathon runner has never been written. The official reports, however, clearly record proof that she did finish the marathon unofficially at the time of the first Olympic Games but that the committee never granted her request. Stamáta Revíthi “lost in the dust of history”summarizes Tarasouleas. Her trace was lost after March 1896. Was she able to find a job and save her son? Did their living conditions benefit from the challenge she took on?
We like to imagine that the determination, the spirit of defiance and the astonishing sporting exploit of Stamáta Revíthi, alias Melpomène, did not only irritate the members of the IOC at the end of the 19th century.e century, but that they also participated in moving the (starting) lines. Was she still alive in 1912 when women were allowed to take part in two swimming events and one diving event in Stockholm?
One thing is certain, in 1984, she did not see the women’s marathon make its official debut at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles. And we will have to change the century again for the Olympic Charter to finally impose the presence of women in each of the Olympic disciplines in 2007.
