Michel Bréal and the return of the Olympic Marathon to Paris on August 10, 2024 – By Prof. Hans Giessen

August 10, 2024, exactly one year ago: The Olympic Marathon takes place in Paris.

The route alone, which passes so many tourist highlights, makes it a very special event. But it was also a very special event for another reason: The Olympic Marathon has actually returned to its place of origin.

The marathon was conceived and virtually “invented” by a Parisian university professor. Michel Bréal was a friend of Pierre de Coubertin. It was Bréal who suggested to Coubertin, organizing the first Games in Athens in 1896, that runners should race from Marathon to the Panathenaic Stadium.

This makes the marathon the only sports event that was invented exclusively for the Olympic idea. On the other hand, the idea of the marathon quickly detached itself from the Olympics and became a myth in its own right. Paris also played a special role here, because in August of the year after the first Games, the first marathon independent of the Olympics took place in Paris, too. An idea began to conquer the world.

An idea closely linked to Paris. It is therefore fair to say that the marathon has returned to the French capital in more ways than one.

Who was Michel Bréal, the Parisian “inventor” of the marathon? Bréal was a linguistics and expert in ancient cultures at the Collège de France in Paris. At the famous Olympic Congress in 1892, which sparked the Games, Bréal sat directly to Coubertin’s right. Coubertin also gave Bréal the floor as the first speaker at this first official Olympic Congress. Bréal promoted the motto “citius, altius, fortius” (faster, higher, stronger) as the Olympic slogan. He was thus an eminently important man in the history of sport!

Michel Bréal – Photo: Marathoneum – Forum for Sports History Berlin

Bréal was born March 26, 1832 in Landau, Germany. His ancestors came from the south-western parts of Germany, but also from Alsace, Lorraine, and Luxembourg. Bréal was an illustrious personality with an impressive social life. For example, he was the father-in-law of Romain Rolland, who later won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

The idea for the Marathon came to Bréal thanks to his “main profession” as a linguist and expert in ancient cultures. There was never a marathon as a sport.

There was the historic course, because after the Battle of Marathon (490 BC), those who had stayed behind in Athens had to be informed that the danger was over. But it was Bréal who had the idea of turning this historic event into a sporting event.

The marathon thus was the expression of the inventiveness of a creative mind. Michel Bréal died on November 25, 1915, in Paris. His ideas live on today. The last major individual competitions at the Olympic Games are the Marathon races. Even at the first Games in Athens in 1896, the marathon race (at that time only for men) was the highlight, which – thanks to the victory of a Greek athlete – further fueled the enthusiasm of the audience and thus, despite various initial difficulties, contributed to the survival of the Olympic idea and ultimately to its triumph.

The first Olympic marathon champion, Spiridon Louis, received a trophy engraved with the words “Olympic Games 1896, Marathon, donated by Michel Bréal” in Greek letters.

Bréal’s trophy was auctioned off by the family of the then winner in 2012, at the height of the financial crisis. The auction took place at Christie’s in London and fetched £541,000 (more than €600,000). This is the highest price ever paid for an Olympic memorabilia item; it was purchased by a Greek foundation.

The trophy also returned to Paris last year and was displayed in an exhibition at the Louvre.

Prof. Hans Giessen