Stamata Revithi

Stamata Revithi (Σταμάτα Ρεβίθη; 1866 – after 1896) was a Greek woman who ran the 40-kilometre marathon during the 1896 Summer Olympics. The Games excluded women from competition, but Revithi insisted that she be allowed to run. Revithi ran one day after the men had completed the official race, and although she finished the marathon in approximately 5 hours and 30 minutes and found witnesses to sign their names and verify the running time, she was not allowed to enter the Panathinaiko Stadium at the end of the race. She intended to present her documentation to the Hellenic Olympic Committee in the hopes that they would recognize her achievement, but it is not known whether she did so. No known record survives of Revithi's life after her run. According to contemporary sources, a second woman, "Melpomene", also ran the 1896 marathon race. There is debate among Olympic historians as to whether or not Revithi and Melpomene are the same person. Stamata Revithi was born in Syros in 1866. Records of her life from 1896 show that she was living in poverty in Piraeus in 1896. At that point she had given birth to two children, a son who died in 1895, aged seven, and another child who was seventeen months old by the time of the 1896 Olympics. According to Olympic historian Athanasios Tarasouleas, Revithi, who was blonde and thin with large eyes, looked much older than her age. Revithi believed that she could gain employment in Athens, and so walked there from her home—a distance of . Her journey took place several days prior to the Olympic marathon, a special race of invented as part of the athletics program, and based on Michel Bréal's idea of a race from the city of Marathon to the Pnyx. Bréal took inspiration from Pheidippides, who, according to legend, ran the distance from Marathon to Athens to announce the Greek victory over Persia at the Battle of Marathon, and died immediately after giving his message. En route to Athens, Revithi encountered a male runner along the road.