The Great Con
Fred Lorz led the race for the first mile but was soon overtaken by the determined Thomas Hicks. John Lordon’s race came to a premature end as he suffered from a sudden bout of vomiting. Sam Mellor became the new leader, but severe cramps practically ended his chance of winning as he first slowed to walking pace before stopping. It seemed as if Lorz’s race was run when he was hit with cramps after just nine miles. He was seen getting into a car and waving at spectators and fellow runners.
It was now Hicks’ race to lose, but his body also betrayed him with 10 miles to go. He begged for water but instead of complying, his trainer, Hugh McGrath, sponged his mouth out with distilled water. Within three miles, Hicks was almost completely spent so Doctor Charles Lucas, who was riding in the vehicle with McGrath, sprang into action. He administered 1/16 grain of sulfate of strychnine orally, mixed with egg white. In the modern era, strychnine is known as a lethal drug, but in the early 20th century, it was a performance-enhancing drug. According to famed novelist H. G. Wells: “Strychnine was a great tonic” that took “the flabbiness out of a man.”
As it turns out, when given in small doses, strychnine enables neurons to fire even when the body’s neurotransmitter levels are very low because of fatigue. Hicks’ team decided against providing him with brandy as they wanted to see how the strychnine would affect him. He kept plodding on, but after 20 miles, he started to turn grey. When poor Hicks only had two miles left, he started hallucinating and believed he had 20 miles to run. He begged for something to eat, but his team gave him the brandy instead.
The Conclusion
Unbeknownst to Hicks, Lorz had reappeared. After traveling 11 miles in an automobile, he jumped out and started running. One of Hicks’ team spotted him and demanded he leave the course, but Lorz kept going. He easily finished ahead of the exhausted Hicks and ‘won’ in a time of less than three hours. The crowd was thrilled and roared “An American won.”
President Theodore Roosevelt’s daughter, Alice, placed a wreath on Lorz’s head and was just about to give him the medal when someone suddenly called for a halt to the fiasco and insisted that Lorz was an imposter. Instead of panicking, Lorz smiled and claimed he was joking and had never intended to keep the gold.
Hicks was on the verge of collapse, but once he heard that Lorz had been disqualified, he somehow kept going and eventually won the race. By the end, his trainers had lifted him up and carried him across the line while Hicks continued to move his legs back and forth as if he was still running. With the aid of four doctors, Hicks was able to leave the grounds an hour later, and he was declared the winner. The great farce had ended, and it was a minor miracle that no one died. Incidentally, Carbajal was invigorated from his nap and finished fourth. Lorz defeated Hicks in the 1905 Boston Marathon without the aid of a car.