It’s one of those stories that gets told over and over. When the women’s 800 meters was included in the Olympic Games for the first time at Amsterdam in 1928, several runners collapsed at the finish. Shocked at the public spectacle of women in such distress, the all-male Olympic establishment cut the event.

Some eyewitness versions give even more dramatic accounts.

“Below us on the cinder path were 11 wretched women, 5 of whom dropped out before the finish, while 5 collapsed after reaching the tape,” wrote John Tunis of the New York Evening Post.

Other newspapers preached that women would be desexed and their reproductive capability impaired by such “terrible exhaustion.” England’s Daily Mail affirmed that women who raced longer than 200 meters would age prematurely.

In this Olympic year, and with the 40th anniversary of Title IX on June 23, it’s worth trying calmly to get this important story right. That 800 meters on August 2, 1928, blocked women’s access to high-level distance racing for 30 years.

Yet the versions I’ve quoted are almost pure fiction.

There were nine women in the race, not 11. All nine are recorded as having finished. None dropped out. Film footage shows only one woman falling at the finish. Not “several,” which even supporters of women's running accept without question.

What bar was John Tunis drinking in while the race was being run? No wonder he went on to be a successful author of boys sports fiction.

This is how the race really went.

First, the final was run the day after the semis, which eliminated 16 competitors. That’s short recovery time for 800 meters. The day was warm. The field included two runners who’d been swapping the world record, Germany’s Lina (Karoline) Radke-Batschauer and Sweden’s Inga Gentzel. In one year, they had lowered it from 2:26.6 to 2:19.6. Add unknowns from Japan and Canada, and two surprising 17-year-olds who made the final. Radke-Batschauer and the two other German finalists carried extra pressure because their defeated nation was admitted to the games for the first time since 1912.

The field of nine goes out fast in a long single file, led by Kinue Hitomi (Japan). Gentzel surges into the lead just after 200 meters and takes them through in 64.2. Radke-Batschauer moves in front with 300 to go, and holds on to win in 2:16.8 from Hitomi, 2:17.6, who just edges Gentzel, 2:17.8. All three were under the world record. Fourth was Jenny Thompson (Canada), age 17, 2:21.0. Then came Bobbie Rosenfeld (Canada) and Florence MacDonald (USA), no times known.

For the much-sensationalized finish, if you own the excellent “Spirit of the Marathon” movie, you can study extracts from the footage. It cuts in as fourth and fifth finish. Radke-Batschauer is visible back-view inside the track, on her feet. Hitomi, also upright, is wrapped in a blanket. As the runners finish, they walk wearily or stand panting with hands on their hips. One (I think she is Canadian, probably Rosenfeld in fifth) is trying to beat the other Canadian in a close finish, leans at the line, and falls forward. She lies for two or three seconds, and is helped to her feet by officials and supported off.

We don’t see the winner finish, but the photo of her and Hitomi shows no sign of exhaustion. Three seconds later, the film shows both on their feet. With the possible exception of the woman who leans and falls, no runner “collapses.” It all looks pretty much like the finish of any other hard race.

The background history is worth pursuing. Alice Milliat of France was one of the great activist leaders in sports and women’s history. She led La Federation Sportive Feminine Internationale and in 1922 created the Women’s Olympic Games (later Women’s Games), which pressured the International Olympic Committee into including women's track and field events in 1928. The devious IOC men agreed to 10 events, but slyly cut that to five, causing Britain to boycott the women's events in protest.

That was typical. It was luridly falsified versions, not the reality of what happened at the finish line in 1928, that enabled the IOC to keep the women’s 800 meters off the program until 1960.

“The sensational descriptions are much exaggerated I can assure you,” wrote Harold Abrahams (Olympic 1924 gold medalist and long-time official and journalist).

For comparison, watch on YouTube the finish of another race in those Amsterdam Olympics, the 5,000m--the iron men of track. Ville Ritola (Finland) wins in a hard finish, by 2 seconds. The defeated runner staggers to the infield, falls down, and lies there.

It’s Paavo Nurmi.

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