Greek Olympic organizers promised that the Summer Games would generate images no other host city could ever produce.
They delivered on that promise Sunday when Japan’s Mizuki Noguchi led the women’s marathon field from Marathon into the marble Panathenaic Stadium, built for the first modern Games 108 years ago.
A minute after Noguchi crossed the finish line in the ancient heart of Athens, U.S. distance runner Deena Kastor also produced something unseen for what seemed like ages. By grabbing third place with a strong kick, Kastor won the first medal by a male or female U.S. marathoner since 1984.
On the track for her final lap, Kastor was unsure whether she was in third or fourth place. She then heard the announcer say she was cruising to the bronze medal.
“I just cried my way around the track after that,” said Kastor, 31.
Brutal heat resulted in far slower times than elite runners often clock. The quickest marathons are contested in conditions closer to 35 degrees than Sunday’s start-time temperature of about 95. Humidity was 65 percent.
The weather clearly played a role in the dramatic withdrawal of the favorite and early pace-setter, world record-holder Paula Radcliffe of Britain.
Kastor conserved her energy for a late surge, picking off floundering rivals near the end. She was eighth at the 30-kilometer mark of the 42-kilometer course, sixth after 35 kilometers and fourth at 40 kilometers.
Approaching the stadium, Kastor ran strongly past Ethiopia’s Elfenesh Alemu, her last obstacle to a place on the medal podium.
Kastor finished in 2 hours 27 minutes 20 seconds, much slower than her American record of 2:21:16 set in April 2003 in London.
And Noguchi’s winning time of 2:26:20 was more than 10 minutes behind Radcliffe’s world-record 2:15:25. Catherine Ndereba of Kenya, a two-time Chicago marathon winner, took the silver medal, finishing 12 seconds behind Noguchi.
“These were the worst conditions I’ve ever seen for a major marathon,” said Carey Pinkowski, the Chicago race’s executive director. “The race was always going to be decided in the last 5 kilometers, and [Kastor] came alive.”
When it is so hot and muggy, he said, the most successful competitors are “not the ones who run the fastest, but the ones who slow the least.”
Pinkowski predicted Kastor’s medal would herald a bright new era for American runners.
Joan Benoit Samuelson won gold in the first women’s marathon at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984. The last U.S. man to win a marathon medal was Frank Shorter in Montreal in 1976.
“This team is the best group of distance runners we have sent to the Olympics since 1972,” Pinkowski said. “We’ve definitely closed the gap.”
Many in the crowd awaiting the runners at the stadium waved Union Jacks and cheered big-screen images of Radcliffe running with the leaders. But after falling off the pace, Radcliffe stopped running and began crying. She briefly tried to run again, but again she halted. Radcliffe ended up on the side of the road, her head hanging.
The three U.S. marathoners did not even feel the need to warm up. They stayed indoors for the hour before the 5:45 p.m. start and wrapped themselves in “ice vests” to keep their core body temperatures cool.
More Top Picks Best Winter Boots For Women
Kastor said the atmosphere surrounding the race motivated her. She noted the mountainous scenery at the start of the course and the lit-up ancient monuments in Athens as she neared the finish.
At the stadium during these games, an announcer noted that Sunday’s competition followed the “authentic course of the marathon … following in the footsteps of Phidippides.”
History, Kastor said, “was with me every step of the way.”
She also made some history herself.