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Olive Wreaths For Boston Marathon Winners

marathonMarathon winners of the 117th edition of the Boston Marathon, one of the world’s most prestigious and last one by a Greek in 1946 when Stylianos Kyriakides made a miracle comeback, will be crowned with olive wreaths from Greece on April 15.

Marathon officials and former winners Greg Meyer and Joan Benoit gathered at the Greek Consulate for the delivery of the wreaths that will crown the heads of this year’s victors in an event that has been dominated by Kenyan runners the last couple of decades.

The ceremony has been continuously organized for 30 years now, but had its origin in the fondness those who started the Boston Marathon in 1897 felt for the original marathon as it transpired in 490 BC, when Pheidippides is alleged to have run from Marathon to Athens to announce that the Greeks had defeated the Persian army.

The 2013 Boston Marathon also marks the 25th anniversary of Kenyan Ibrahim Hussein’s 1988 Boston Marathon victory, which made him the event’s first African champion.

The race is conducted by the Boston Athletic Association (BAA,) whose President Joann Flaminio said owes everything to Greece. “Some gentleman – and we’ll excuse him because he was a young gentleman –  stood up, a marathon runner, and asked the following question: Can you tell me why the Boston Marathon is point to point and not a circular race?” she recalled. “And I thought to myself, ‘Whoa, he really needs a little Greek history lesson, and he certainly doesn’t understand the importance of the great run by Pheidippides from Marathon to Athens.”

The 2013 Boston Marathon marks the first year of the BAA’s more stringent qualifying standards that makes the race one of the world’s toughest and most competitive.

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