Thomas John Hicks (January 11, 1876 – January 28, 1952)
was an American
track and field athlete. He won the
marathon at the
Olympic Games
The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a vari ...
in 1904.
Biography
Hicks, a brass worker from
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston ...
, was born in
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. He was the winner of a remarkable marathon race at the
1904 Summer Olympics, held as part of the World Fair in
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
.
Conditions were bad, the course being a dirt track, with large clouds of dust produced by the accompanying vehicles. Hicks was not the first to cross the finish line, trailing
Fred Lorz. However, Lorz had abandoned the race after 9 miles. After covering much of the course by car, he re-entered the race 5 miles before the finish. This was discovered by the officials, who disqualified Lorz, who claimed it had been a joke.
Had the race been run under current rules, Hicks would also have been disqualified for using
strychnine: his assistants had given him a dose of 1/60 of a grain (roughly 1 mg) of strychnine and some
brandy because he was flagging badly during the race; the first dose of
strychnine did not revive him for long, so he was given another. As a result, he collapsed after crossing the finishing line. Another dose might have been fatal. Strychnine is now forbidden for athletes as part of the Olympic rules against
doping and its use in an Olympic event has only been attempted once since in 2016.
Hicks finished in sixth place at the
Boston Marathon in both 1901 and 1902. In the Fall of the latter year he relocated to Minneapolis, Minnesota for work, and while there became captain of the Minneapolis YMCA cross-country team that won the state championship. Hicks returned to Boston in the spring of 1904 and finished second in the Boston Marathon that year. He dropped out during the following year's race;
the year after, he began walking at Wellesley, and walked all the way to the finish. The 1905 Boston Marathon was legitimately won by Lorz. However, on June 30, 1906, Hicks finished three minutes ahead of
Alexander Thibeau to win a marathon at an
Amateur Athletic Union
The Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) is an amateur sports organization based in the United States. A multi-sport organization, the AAU is dedicated exclusively to the promotion and development of amateur sports and physical fitness programs. It h ...
meet in Chicago (3:02).
The next year he finished thirteenth at the Boston Marathon and sixth at the Chicago Marathon conducted by the
Illinois Athletic Club. He finished sixteenth at the same race in the following year, by which time he had returned to Minneapolis. On January 16, 1909 he was leading a marathon at Chicago under terrible weather conditions for more than eight miles before being forced to retire with a stitch; the race was won by
Sidney Hatch
Sidney Herbert Hatch (August 18, 1883 – October 17, 1966) was an American athlete who competed for the United States in the 1904 Summer Olympics held in St. Louis, United States, in the 4 mile team where he won the silver medal with h ...
.
In later years, he worked on mining claims at
Ingolf, Ontario, and lived at
Winnipeg, Manitoba
Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749,6 ...
, Canada where his two brothers had settled. He became a naturalized Canadian,
[Voter's List, Winnipeg South Centre Polling division No. 8, 1945 and 1949.] and died at Winnipeg in 1952 at the age of seventy-six.
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References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Hicks, Thomas
1876 births
American male long-distance runners
American male marathon runners
Athletes (track and field) at the 1904 Summer Olympics
Olympic gold medalists for the United States in track and field
Drugs in sport in the United States
Medalists at the 1904 Summer Olympics
1952 deaths