This was a very controversial event. The final was a rerun, when the original final was declared void. The other finalists William Robbins (USA) and John Taylor (USA) refused to participate in the rerun. A fourth finalist and the original winner, John Carpenter (USA) was disqualified in the original final.
The first man to the finish line, Dorando Pietri (ITA), was disqualified for receiving help after he collapsed a few meters before the finish. The distance was 42 195 meters for the first time, later standardized as the "marathon distance".
Athens was chosen as the host city in 1997, after surprisingly losing the bid to organize the 1996 SummerOlympics, the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the modern Olympic Games.
Since the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France it has been the tradition to have a mascot for the games and this year the official mascots are sister and brother, Athena and Phevos, named after the goddess of wisdom, strategy and war and the god of light and music, respectively.
An emotional high point of the parade was the entrance of the delegation from Afghanistan which had been absent from the Olympics, and had female competitors for the first time.
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