Sunday week. Sunday week. Just another few days now for the 30,000 or so – I almost said "odd" there, which might have been apt in a way given that it is hardly natural to want to run 26 miles – runners limbering up for the 2012 Virgin London Marathon to work strenuously on not working too strenuously.

At this point last year I was in the same position and, after a badly-timed bout of flu – all right, man flu, call it what you will but I was out of the running for almost two weeks – I consulted with people who knew more than I did about the marathon (not hard, given the size of that category) and was told on no account to try and put in a long run before the big day.

I took this information on board. But the luggage must have become lost in transit as, less than a fortnight before the London Marathon, I set out on a long run, reasoning that I needed to know I could finish.

At 10 miles it felt like a great plan. I was flying along. I had to slow myself down because I was running miles too fast. At 15 miles I was almost euphoric. At 20 miles – just two miles from home – I began to have to work a little harder at moving forward. At 20 miles and two hundred yards I decided it was my top that was the problem – too clingy. I took it off. It made no difference. I stopped again – laces needed re-tying. In truth, I just needed to halt.

A mile from home one of my legs started to cramp up. I was personally offended. This had never happened to me before. I was not a person whose legs cramped, definitively. Determined not to stop, I could nevertheless manage no more than a shambling gait up the hill to my house. Had anyone seen me at that point, they might have thought I was a desperate, middle-aged man who had clearly gone beyond his limited capabilities for the sake of vanity. As if.

My hand trembled with the key at the door. After a cup of tea with two sugars I felt slightly better – that is, not good. Who knows?  Had I not taken that unwise exertion things might have gone differently for me on the day, maybe slightly better. But then maybe I did gain by knowing I could probably go for the whole distance if I didn't do anything silly. I might be better able to judge the relative merits of that question after my next marathon. But whatever the merits or demerits of my preparation, I was able – along with more than 36,000 other souls, a record for the event – to experience the deep satisfaction of finishing a marathon.

Take that basic satisfaction, and increase it exponentially by victory, then by victory at the Olympics, then by victory at a home Olympics, then by victory at a home Olympics in the first marathon of the modern Games.


It is hard to estimate what Spyridon – or Spyros – Louis (pictured winning) must have felt when he overtook the Australian leader of the marathon at the 1896 Athens Games and ran into a storm of patriotic noise in the white marble magnificence of the Panathinaiko Stadium, constructed on the site where the ancient Games had taken place, before delivering his motherland its only track and field gold of the Games.

Asked by the King what gift he would like to mark his achievement, Louis – a water-carrier from the Athens suburb of Marousi – reportedly asked for a donkey-drawn carriage to help with his work. Which he received.  If ever an athlete needed an agent, surely it was he...

But if it is difficult to estimate the depth and breadth of that humble Greek water-carrier's emotions, it is less hard to put a figure on the other tangible reward he earned from his achievement at the Games – the cup which was presented to him as the first modern Olympic marathon champion.

This item will go up for auction at Christie's on Wednesday (April 22) with an estimated worth of between £120,000 ($191,000/€145,000) and £160,000 ($255,000/€194,000).


Bréal's Silver Cup, named after the Frenchman who had the idea of staging the marathon at the first of the modern Games, has been offered for sale for the first time by Louis' grandson – also named Spyros.

"Our family has been very proud to have the honour of looking after this important historical sporting trophy for the last 116 years and my grandfather's achievement of winning the first ever marathon, at the first modern Olympic Games will remain part of my family's heritage forever," said Louis.

"However, it is time to look to the future, not the past – I have two children, and the most important thing for me is to ensure that they are looked after as well as possible.

"It is always going to be impossible to split a cup, so I have decided that the most sensible thing to do is to offer it at auction, and use the proceeds to secure the future of my family."

Similar calculations have prompted sales in recent years of many cherished items of sporting memorabilia.


When, in 2010, Nobby Stiles (pictured) became the eighth member of England's 1966 World Cup winning side to put his medal up for auction, along with other medals and related items he had collected in his career, he explained: "It was always my intention to leave the entire collection to my children. But I have three sons – how do you fairly divide up this sort of collection between them?"

According to one of Stiles' sons, John, the mild stroke his father had suffered in the preceding summer had "speeded up" a process that was always going to happen.

Ill health has played a part in other such sporting sales. Hungarian footballer Ferenc Puskás put the Golden Boot he had earned for 83 goals in his 84 internationals up for auction at Bonham's to cover medical bills after he began suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Given a reserve price of £2,500 ($4,000/€3,000), it raised more than £85,000 ($135,000/€103,000).

In 2008 Alan Hudson, the former Chelsea and England midfielder who had to recover from serious injuries after being run over, put his European Cup Winners' Cup medal from Chelsea's 1971 victory over Real Madrid up for sale seeking offers in the region of £25,000 ($40,000/€30,000).

But if the Louis legacy is up for sale, that of another legendary Olympic marathon runner, Dorando Pietri, is not. When the little Italian came to London in 1908 and raced through the streets of Windsor, Slough, Wembley, Harrow, Sudbury and Harlesden en route for the White City stadium on a July day of unusual heat, he repeated a mantra to himself: "Vincero o moriro" (I will win or I will die).


In the event, having arrived first in the stadium before collapsing five times and being assisted to his feet and across the line, neither of his alternatives came to pass. He would have been better, during the race, to have repeated the following phrase: "I will almost win, and almost die, and I will receive a special cup from the Queen."

Moved by the sight of Pietri's struggles in a race from which he was disqualified following an appeal from the eventual winner, Johnny Hayes of the United States, Queen Alexandra decided to mark his efforts at the following day's Closing Ceremony, presenting him with a gilded silver cup.

There had not been time to inscribe the cup, so it came with a card handwritten by the Queen bearing the following words: "For Pietri Dorando. In remembrance of the Marathon Race from Windsor to the Stadium. From Queen Alexandra."


The Italian, who understood only the word "Bravo" as the Queen spoke to him, declared afterwards: "This cup is the balm of my soul. I shall treasure it to the end of my life."

Pietri died in 1942 of a heart attack, aged 56. His wife Teresa outlived him, dying in 1979. They had no children. But, despite dramatically fluctuating fortunes, Pietri was able to remain true to his declaration.

Four years ago, to mark the centenary of that Olympic race – the first to be run over the now classic distance of 26 miles 385 yards – the gilded silver cup returned to the capital for London Marathon week, proudly displayed by Christina Luppi, President of Sport Club La Patria, Dorando's club in his home town of Carpi.

No matter how many runners complete the marathon, no matter how extraordinary their victories, the achievement of Dorando Pietri is unique and unmatchable.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the past five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames. Rowbottom's Twitter feed can be accessed here.