The Modern Olympics Invented the Marathon

The Paris Olympics marathon will bypass the modest Rue Michel-Bréal, despite his significant role in the origin of marathons. Michel Bréal, an academic known for coining the term “semantics,” proposed the idea of a marathon race to honour the Greek legend of a messenger who ran from Marathon to Athens carrying news of victory. His suggestion turned into a reality at the 1896 Olympics in Athens, making the marathon a global sporting event.