Just a half-loop around the track, and the gold medal for the marathon at the 1908 London Olympics was his.
But for Dorando Pietri, exhausted and dehydrated after running 26 miles under a harsh sun, 385 yards might as well have been one mile. Five times he fell; a hush fell over the crowd, broken only by fervent cries.
"Let him alone!"
"That's not sport!"
Finally to the finish line, aided by two officials, in a time of 2:54:46, whereupon Pietri collapsed. No one knew whether he would survive.
One hundred years ago, on the day that the plucky Pietri concluded his gold-medal dreams in a London hospital, the Olympic movement was in serious trouble.
The dream-child of Baron Pierre de Coubertin had foundered since its modern-day beginnings in 1896. The inaugural Games, in Athens, were sparsely attended, with only 176 athletes from 12 countries represented. The 1900 (Paris) and 1904 (St. Louis) Olympics were mere sideshows for the world's fairs they accompanied.
"The 1900 and 1904 Games had been so terrible," says Olympic historian David Wallechinsky, "because they didn't have the best athletes in the world competing against each other. No one cared."
But mighty Britannia was the birthplace of organized sports, and the 1908 Olympics were well-planned and forward-thinking. For the first time, countries selected the athletes for their teams, ensuring top competition for the Games, with 2,023 participants from 22 countries. The Brits erected White City Stadium in West London -- the first stadium built specifically for the Olympics. The steel-and-concrete oval was so vast that swimming events were held in a 100-meter pool within the infield. A rabid press corps descended to chronicle every controversy at the "Battle of Shepherd's Bush."
On July 24, 1908, an estimated 75,000 spectators filled White City Stadium to await the conclusion of a newfangled competition called the marathon. The race was invented in 1894, when one of De Coubertin's collaborators, linguist Michel Bréal, suggested adding a long-distance test to the 1896 Olympics. The contest began in the town of Marathon and concluded in Athens as a way to commemorate a storied moment in Greek history.
De Coubertin approved the 40-kilometer race (about 25 miles) despite the fact that few athletes alive had ever trained for -- much less competed in -- anything longer than three miles. Thus was born what one writer has called "the most audacious of races."
In 1908, the course began at Windsor Castle and ended 26 miles later at the stadium. Once inside, runners had to complete a partial lap, measured at 385 yards, so as to finish in front of the royal box. (In 1924, the odd and random distance of 26 miles 385 yards became the marathon standard.)
The favorite was Canada's Tom Longboat, an Onondaga Indian who had captured the 1907 Boston Marathon in record time. The U.S. entered seven runners, including a slight Irish American lad named Johnny Hayes. Italy's Dorando Pietri went unheralded; many reporters believed that Pietri was his first name.
Tens of thousands of spectators lined London's roads to cheer on the 55 runners (from 16 nations) sweltering in the afternoon heat. Longboat held the lead at the 17-mile mark, when he suddenly dropped out. Unconfirmed reports indicated that he had ingested strychnine, the performance-enhancer of choice during this era.
Wearing red pantaloons that reached his knees and a white kerchief to shield his dust-covered hair, Pietri took control at the 25-mile mark. But he had reached the edge of human endurance; he collapsed repeatedly, only to be aided to his feet. "He was helped by the officials," says Olympic historian Bill Mallon, "in clear violation of the rules."
The U.S. team lodged a protest. Pietri was disqualified and Hayes awarded the gold medal. Hayes' victory was the last for a U.S. Olympic marathoner until Frank Shorter broke through in 1972.
Hayes was the champ, but Pietri was the hero. The next day, after he was released from the hospital, Queen Alexandra presented him with a silver cup. Photographs of the race's conclusion -- among the first sports-action images ever produced -- appeared in newspapers around the world.
The media uproar turned Pietri into an international star. Afterward, he, Hayes, and Longboat turned pro and crisscrossed the U.S. in a series of big-money races. Their well-publicized duels, including an indoor, mano a mano match in New York's Madison Square Garden, created the first marathon craze in this country. Irving Berlin marked the occasion by writing his first hit song, titled "Dorando."
A woman walks past the still underconstruction China Central Television's (CCTV) headquarters in Beijing July 30, 2008. The CCTV broadcaster is dedicating 3,000 staff to the Beijing Olympic Games, with over 2,500 hours of programming going out on seven of the 17 channels it controls. CCTV will distribute Beijing Olympics broadcasts to all TV stations across China. 
People walk past the Grand Lisboa Casino in Macau July 30, 2008. Currently scattered among the thousands of punters that regularly flock to Macau are hundreds of Olympic athletes, who have descended on the former Portuguese colony to fine-tune their preparations for Beijing. Most teams chose Macau because it is close to Beijing, about three hours by air, and offers similar weather conditions to the Chinese capital. 
The Gamble House in Pasadena is celebrating its centennial. A 10-month, $3.5-million restoration was completed in 2004. 
Unable to relocate after nearly 75 years in business, Acres of Books, the giant literature warehouse downtown, will sell its inventory and close to make way for an urban redevelopment project.
Want to get away but tired of driving to a crowded airport and cramming into an airliner?
When the Zero X wheeled onto the dirt track at Lake Elsinore, the Colgate-white motocross bike looked positively virginal next to the belching, candy-colored models that leaped from mound to mound around it.
This estate set atop a La Jolla bluff was designed by architect Wallace E. Cunningham to capture natural light through floor-to-ceiling glass walls and windows. The view from the central courtyard reflects the sunset afterglow over the Pacific. The house, perched atop a bluff above Torrey Pines State Reserve, "is subservient to the sea and the bluff," says the architect. "When you sit there they're perfectly framed in every view."
A look down at Dead Man's Cove, which can be seen during the 1.2-mile round-trip hike to Cape Disappointment Lighthouse in Washington state. The cove can be accessed through stairs from the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center. As the story goes, the body of a shipwreck victim washed up on the shore here — thus the cove's name.
Randy Pausch, a terminally ill professor whose earnest farewell lecture at Carnegie Mellon University became an Internet phenomenon and bestselling book that turned him into a symbol for living and dying well, died Friday. He was 47.
Just a half-loop around the track, and the gold medal for the marathon at the 1908 London Olympics was his.
This image provided by NASA shows layers of Earth's atmosphere, brightly colored as the sun rises over central Asia, and Polar Mesospheric Clouds (also known as noctilucent clouds) are featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 17 crewmember on the International Space Station Tuesday July 22, 2008. 
It looks like the Holy Grail of comic/film adaptations is finally moving in the right direction: towards actually being completed. Just because it is heading in the right direction, doesn’t mean that it is heading in a good direction though. Exactly one year to the day of release, Zack Snyder has given us a look at the Watchmen from his official blog. 
It'S the Cannes of Capes, the World's Fair for Fanboys, the ultimate Bazaar of the Bizarre. Comic-Con International gets underway today at the San Diego Convention Center and 125,000 fans will attend this frothy celebration -- and hard sell -- of pop culture.
Though Irwin was criticized for his plant selection in the water-bound azalea maze, he still defends his choice. “I was looking for a plant that had certain properties, and the azalea kept coming up as a possibility,” the artist said, later adding: “There is a famous azalea grower in Altadena called the Nuccio Brothers. For four generations, that’s all they’ve done is grow azaleas. They told me which azaleas are going to do [what], which peat moss to get, how they should be grown. I did my homework.”
Made of hand-chiseled cantera stone, the fountain has been re-piped and equipped to run at variable rates of flow. Though the design is described as “Mayan-inspired” and Barragán rarely used such fussy vernacular, the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission declared it “a signature project of Barragán, an architect of international fame and an architect of great importance to contemporary Mexican culture.”
Exceptionnally rare and highly sought after art deco modernist glass and chrome mood lamp manufactured by the famous and short lived Maison Desny Company around 1930.
IT WAS a moment of beginnings: 14 fresh-faced young men, still wet from the surf, standing ramrod straight at the end of the Santa Monica Pier. It was the start of the summer of '46 and of careers that would make many of them legendary watermen. Surf culture was in its infancy -- the global exportation of the carefree California lifestyle was a wave decades away from cresting, the Beach Boys were still little boys, and the woodie wagon was still just a car.
One of New Zealand’s most exhilarating and spectacular tourist attractions: The Auckland City Sky Tower is the tallest tower in the southern hemisphere at 328 metres. Located in the heart of Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city. With picturesque views from the tower.
The Alaska Railroad takes riders into the far reaches of the 49th state, connecting Seward, Anchorage, Denali National Park and Fairbanks, with other stops in between.
The Denali Star Train crosses the Chulitna River, north of Anchorage. Parts of Alaska are accessible only by railroad.
Called for a civil trial before the General Court of Massachusetts in November 1637, Anne Hutchinson ably defended herself against charges that she had defamed the colony's ministers and as a woman had dared to teach men. Her extensive knowledge of Scripture, her eloquence, and her intelligence allowed Hutchinson to debate with more skill than her accusers. Yet because Hutchinson claimed direct revelation from God and argued that "laws, commands, rules, and edicts are for those who have not the light which makes plain the pathway," she was convicted and banished from the colony, a sentence confirmed along with formal excommunication in the ecclesiastical trial that followed. Eventually, she was hanged for challenging Puritan orthodoxy.
Diagnosed with a fatal disease at age 20, Steve Goodman managed to survive and thrive and to write an anthem of his generation and become what many considered the most galvanizing entertainer of his time. What lessons did he learn and share with others while privately, then publicly, fending off leukemia for more than 15 years? The answers lie in Clay Eals' biography, "Steve Goodman: Facing the Music." 
Jo Stafford, a singer who was a favorite of GIs during World War II and whose recordings made the pop music charts dozens of times in the 1950s had a long career but enjoyed most of her success from the late 1930s to the early '60s. Her skills were apparent from the beginning, when she sang as a teenager in a vocal trio with her two older sisters, Pauline and Christine. Her performances were superb displays of crystal-clear musicality combined with an insightful understanding of lyrics. 
Back by popular demand, "Go, Diego, Go Live! The Great Jaguar Rescue" returns to the Southland (Nokia Theatre)for a live-action theatrical presentation based on Nickelodeon's hit children's show. You can follow Diego, Alicia and Dora on a special mission to get Baby Jaguar's growl back from the Bobo brothers. The pint-sized trio rescues animals, navigates the Latin American rain forest and passes giant waterfalls along the way.
The razing of Shea Stadium later this year marks the end of an era for baseball fans, but it's also closing the door on a chapter of pop music history that began in 1965 when the Beatles became the first pop group to play a concert at a U.S. sports stadium.
GIVEN THE success of "Batman Begins" three years ago, adventurous, eclectic director Christopher Nolan could have gone anywhere and done anything with his next film. So why did he elect to return to the mythical city of Gotham, to the confines of a superhero movie and the narrow world of a caped crusader imprisoned by the secret of who he really is? 
By Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times Movie Critic 
Babe Ruth receives a final accolade at Yankee Stadium in June, 1948, just two months before his death. The "Sultan of Swat" had set the new single-season home-run record of 60, breaking his old record at the site in 1927.
