HEW YORK MARATHON RACE.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9389, 8 March 1909, Page 7

HEW YORK MARATHON RACE.

TUs correspondent of the Daily Telegraph thus describes the closing toene of Lthe Marathon race in Madison Square Gardensu;-It was a scene which baffled description, and transcended everything in one s experience. Towards the close, It was seen that Dorando had Hayes beaten, some of the box-holders left their seats, and all but..precipitated a riot. There were two laps more to ttm. The track officials tried to , warn the trespassers back, but there was no time for them to be gentle for the fierce partisans of the runners already, were swarming on to the course, eager to -clear the way for the finish of the race. The police moved into the melee, too, and in the few seconds it required to block the track just at the point where the race was to be concluded several ■ hundred people were massed in the struggle. Blows were struck, and fights sprang up on every side ; but the track officials, backed by the police, cleared a lane through which Dorando and Hayes ran in their next lap of the track, and then the inyEders were crowded roughly back into the aisles between the arena and the boxes, with broken hats and a few brnises distiibuted among .them while the mass of the spectators still swarmed over to the, scene of the trouble and filled up the track a second time, just as Dorando came on to finish the race, and win by nearly half a lap. - Beautifully dressed woman, waving American flags, Reaped far over in the boxes in their efforts to urge their champion to one last desperate effort. Men who were present at the Stadium last July, whan Hayes was declared victor, wept as they witnessed hs defeat. Mr Richard Uroker, who started the race, appeared inconsolable. He had told Hayes previous to the race that he had come all the way from Ireland to see America retain the Marathon crown, and he would sooner have lost the Derby last year than this race. Until those last three laps never more than three yards separated the competitors. Poor Hayes, heartbroken and in great distress, was seen to glance at Box 58. occupied by Miss Mason, his fiancee. She wore, at Hayes’s request, the same gown ami that in which she had appeared at,the Stadium last July. Overcome at the finish. Miss Mason fainted, and a quarter ;of an, hour elapsed before she recovered. . Until the last few laps Dorando s and Hayes’ times per mile were substantially the same. They took smin. aTaeos, for the first time, and maintained much the same or rather a little over throughout until the nineteenth mile, which they ran in 7min 33seo, which was their worst time during the entire race, but tor the twentieth mile they reduced the time to 6min «J7seo. The. twentysixth mile occupied just 6mm, 7 4-saeos.