Dick Grant

Richard "Dick" Grant (August 3, 1870 – January 9, 1958) was a Canadian track and field athlete who competed at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris, France for the United States. He also competed in the first four Boston Marathons, one of only two athletes (the other being Lawrence Bragnolia) to have done so.

Grant was the son of a Presbyterian minister, born in the small farming community of Dufferin, in Haldimand County, Ontario, about three miles east of the Six Nations reserve where Tom Longboat lived. The community no longer exists, although it acted as a New York Central Railway stop before that line was decommissioned. As a result, Grant's birthplace is sometimes incorrectly attributed to other locations in Canada with the same name. The family moved to St. Mary's, Perth County, Ontario in the 1880s. Grant attended the University of Toronto as an undergraduate, and was a member of the Toronto Lacrosse Club. He then attended Harvard University Medical School in Cambridge, Massachusetts beginning about 1895, and enrolled in the track team there as a miler, running 4:25 for the distance. Grant's education at Harvard was self-funded, and he had to work in order to earn his tuition. His enrollment at the Medical School had frequent interruptions as a result.

Grant entered the inaugural Boston Marathon in 1897 with a solid background in track racing, but without having previously engaged in any long runs. His entry contravened orders he had received from his track team at Harvard, which wanted him to be fresh for a dual meet with the University of Pennsylvania. He was the only man in a field of eighteen runners without a handler accompanying him on a bicycle to provide him with water and to attend to his needs. Grant nonetheless took the lead immediately. He was joined by cross-country runner Hamilton Gray from New York City, and they shared the lead for about twelve miles until John J. McDermott caught the pair on the downhill into Newton Lower Falls. Gray stopped to walk, but Grant gave chase for a mile until the base of the next hill was reached. There, Grant walked to the top of the hill. Seeing a street-watering cart, used to keep the dust down on the dirt streets, he asked the driver to run water over him. Once his legs had cooled down, he tried to run again, but his feet were too blistered to continue, and he dropped out with about nine miles to go. McDermott continued on to win the race. He was effusive in his praise for Grant; "He is the hardest man I ever beat," he said. "He held me for a mile, although he was all pumped out. If he had trained for the race he would have given me a hard race. As it was it was hard enough to shake him. He ran the pluckiest race I ever saw." Grant had lost twelve pounds in weight over the race, and his feet were so blistered he was unable to walk for several days afterward.

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