Thomas Longboat
From WikiRun
| Tom Longboat | |
| Event | Marathon |
|---|---|
| Height | 5'9" (175 cm) |
| Weight | 146 lbs (66 kg) |
| Nationality | Canada |
| PR | Mar - 2:24:24 (1907) |
| Born | July 4, 1887 at Six Nations Reserve, Ontario |
| Died | January 9, 1949 at Six Nations Reserve, Ontario |
| Club | Brantford |
Thomas Longboat (1887-1949) has been called Canada's greatest long distane runner, who won the 1907 Boston Marathon. He was a decendent of the Onondaga nation (what Canadians call "First Nations" and the United States would call an "Indian" or "Native American.")
Career highlights
- Around the Bay Road Race, Hamilton, Ontario, 1906
- Ward’s Island Marathon, Toronto, Ontario, 1906
- Boston Marathon, 1907
- Ward’s Island Marathon, Toronto, Ontario, 1907
- Ward’s Island Marathon, Toronto, Ontario, 1908
- World professional marathon championship, New York, 1909
After winning the five-mile Victoria Day race at Caledon, Ontario, in 1905 as a teenager, Longboat attracted the attention of Bill Davis, a Six Nations runner who had placed second in the 1901 Boston Marathon. Together they trained for Hamilton's Around the Bay road race, the oldest road race in North America. Longboat won the 1906 event by more than three minutes.
Following this victory, trainers in Toronto, most notably Tom Flanagan, took control of Longboat's career. In the fall of 1906, Longboat won the first of three consecutive 15-mile "marathons" on Toronto's Ward Island. But it was in April 1907, that he rose to international prominence when he captured the Boston Marathon in record time, with a time nearly five minutes faster than the previous best. After, Longboat began focusing on the 1908 London Olympics.
Longboat was a favorite to win the marathon gold medal, but failed to reach that goal. Before the Games even began, United States officials claimed that the First Nations runner had trained and competed as a professional, thus forfeiting his amateur status and making him ineligible for Olympic competition. Amazingly, the Canadian Amateur Athletic Federation, as part of its struggle over the control of amateur sport in Canada with the Amateur Athletic Union, supported the American case. Public sympathy and nationalist sentiment swung in Longboat's favour, however, and he headed to London as one of the favourites in the Olympic marathon. However, Longboat collapsed as the race reached 20 miles. Rumours circulated that Longboat had been sabotaged, perhaps even by his own handlers, and that he had been administered an illegal stimulant.
The fallout from the London Olympics reiterated many of the stereotypes that Longboat faced throughout his career: "Indian" athletes were lazy, wouldn't follow training regimens, and Longboat was stubborn and too fond of alcohol. Longboat attempted to escape these slights by buying out his contract and taking control of his career. The Olympic scandal had only fuelled public interest in long distance running. In 1909, a world professional marathon championship was staged indoors at New York's Madison Square Garden and Longboat defeated the world's best runners.
In 1912, Longboat set a new 15-mile world record of 1:18:10 - fully seven minutes better than his fastest amateur time. During that year, Longboat competed head-to-head in ten races with his greatest rival, Britain's Alf Shrubb. During this era when professional long distance races drew large crowds, Longboat's main rivals were Shrubb and Italy's Dorando Pietri. Longboat and Shrubb staged numerous match races in front of crowds of 20,000 or more in cities such as Toronto and New York. Longboat won every race against Shrubb when the distance exceeded 20 miles, while his British rival dominated the shorter distances.
Longboat put aside his professional running career in 1916 at age 29 to join the Canadian forces serving in Europe where he served as a dispatch runner and, though twice wounded, also competed in inter-battalion races. In 1918, he won the 8-mile race at the Canadian Corps Dominion Day celebrations. He returned to Canada in 1919 but did not resume competitive running. Longboat lived out his life in relative obscurity, working for the City of Toronto before returning to the Six Nations Reserve. In 1951, the Aboriginal Sport Circle honored him by naming the Tom Longboat Award after him. The award honors excellence in sport and physical activity among First Nations athletes.
Longboat was inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 1955.