An Unprecedented Occurrence during the Olympic Marathon

On August 30, in an unprecedented freak incident during the men’s Olympic marathon in Athens, the frontrunner Vanderlei De Lima of Brazil was tackled by a man who suddenly launched into him and knocked him into the crowd. Lima resumed his run after getting away from his attacker, but he lost his pace and was overtaken by Stefano Baldini (Italy) to finish in third place. Baldini took the gold with a winning time of 2 hours 10 minutes and 54 seconds. The assailant, a former Catholic priest from Ireland, said that he created the disruption in order to “prepare for the second coming.”