Albert Corey

athletics
silver	1904	marathon
silver	1904	4 mile team run

Albert Corey (actually: Albert Louis Coray ; * 1881 in Paris , France , † unknown) was a long-distance runner from France who won two Olympic medals in 1904. He changed his name to Corey after moving to the United States .

Coray was a well - known long-distance runner at the beginning of the 20th century , but little of his life has been passed down to the present day. An example of this is the view taken by some sports historians believe Coray would have been at the Olympics in Paris in 1900 at the marathon competition. However, there is no evidence to support this claim. Coray's name first appeared in 1902 in the lists of the 41.2 km long-distance run from Achères to Paris, in which Michel Théato , the 1900 Olympic champion in Paris, also took part. Coray took seventh place with 3:12:55 hours and was almost six minutes and two places ahead of Théato.

Coray also had experience in what is now known as ultra-marathons . Newspapers from that time report on Coray as the winner of several 24-hour races in France. These and other ultra-long runs were very popular at the time. One of them was the 155 km run from Saint-Malo / Paramé to Rennes , which Coray won in 16 hours 32 minutes in 1902.

In 1903 Coray traveled to the United States, where he settled in Chicago . At that time, the butchers 'and butchers' strike took place there and in other large cities in the country. It was common at the time to find new immigrants a job as a strike breaker. Coray also got a job as a professional strike breaker. He changed his name to Corey, which was close to the American convention for his birth name.

His running skills enabled him to join the Chicago Athletic Association. This sent him to the 1904 Olympic Games in St. Louis . Corey's first competition was the marathon, which was characterized by extremely difficult external circumstances. But the unqualified and sometimes even inadmissible assistance that some runners received also had a significant impact on the run. Corey was one of the few runners who was unsupported. He relied on his skills and experience, which eventually earned him second place.

Four days after running the marathon, Corey took part in the team run of the Chicago Athletic Association in the 4-mile team run. In addition to the runners from Chicago, only runners from New York City who started for the local New York Athletic Club took part. Together with James Lightbody , Frank Verner , Lacey Hearn and Sidney Hatch , Albert Corey and his team took second place. A run was held in which all ten runners (five for each team) took part. The team evaluation was based on the number of places (1st place = 1 point; 2nd place = 2 points etc.). For Corey, the track was too short to play to his strengths. He therefore only started to complete the team, and he finished ninth in front of his teammate Hatch.

What is special about Albert Corey's participation in the Olympic Games in St. Louis is his French origins. Only a few athletes were sent as official representatives of their country at the time. Almost all athletes started for their clubs, which viewed the Olympic Games as a prestigious competition among clubs. Corey was thus a representative of the Chicago Athletic Association, and as such he was listed in the statistics as an American. At that time, however, Corey was not yet an American citizen and was French by nationality. In many newspaper articles of the time, Corey was also referred to as a “Frenchman”.

For statistics based on nationality today, such as medal tables and national rankings, Corey's French nationality during the 1904 Olympic Games was not without influence. Its participation justifies the observation that, alongside Switzerland , the United Kingdom and Italy , France is also one of the few countries for which athletes of this nationality took part in all the Summer and Winter Olympics. However, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has so far insufficiently considered this finding in its published lists of winners and in the medal table. While Corey continues to be listed as an American when he participates in the marathon, the team medal is classified as a mixed team .

Placements at the Olympic Games:

• III. 1904 Olympic Games, St. Louis
  • Marathon - silver with 3:34:52 h (gold to Thomas Hicks from the USA with 3:28:53 h; bronze to Arthur Newton from the USA with 3:47:33 h)
  • 4 Mile Team - Silver with the Chicago Athletic Association team (Gold to New York Athletic Club, USA)

Albert Corey's success in the marathon caused a sensation in Chicago and the surrounding area. The Illinois Athletic Club organized its own marathon over 25 miles in 1905, which was to be held annually and was intended to compete with the Boston Marathon . Albert Corey, who was intended to be the star of this event, took part in this run from 1905 to 1908, but was only victorious in 1908, finishing second in 1907.

However, Corey did not limit himself to the 25 miles of a marathon run, which was usual at the time, he also undertook ultra-long runs. In 1905 he tried Dan O'Leary's record over a distance of 90 miles between Milwaukee and Chicago, but with his time of 23 hours 10 minutes he missed the record by more than 5 hours. In 1907, however, he completed a distance of 91.6 miles between the two cities in 18 hours 37 minutes, a time that Sidney Hatch , his teammate in the 1904 Olympic team race, could not beat until 1916 .

Corey's intention to take part in the London Olympics in 1908 required prior qualification. 1908 began in the USA with regular elimination competitions for participation in the Olympic Games. For these competitions, now known as the US Trials , the marathon had two 25-mile events, the Boston Marathon and the Missouri Athletic Club Marathon in St. Louis. Albert Corey took part in the latter and, despite a personal best of 2:38:47 h over this length of the route, only finished fourth and thus missed his chance.

After this disappointment, Corey decided to switch to the professional runner camp. In January 1909 he competed in a marathon against Dorando Pietri , the unfortunate disqualified first of the 1908 Olympic marathon in London. Pietri stayed in the United States in 1909 to rehabilitate himself for his missed Olympic victory with a series of revenge competitions. The runs, including the one against Corey, were held in a hall, the length of the course being exactly the length of 42.195 km of the London Olympic marathon. There were only duels between only two runners. Corey had no chance against Pietri and lost the competition with an almost unbelievable deficit of over eleven km. Despite this enormous backlog, he did not stop the run, but ran the entire distance.

Corey's last customer is his participation in the 6-day run at Madison Square Garden in New York City from March 8-14, 1909, a highly regarded competition with strong international participation. You started with teams consisting of two runners and took turns at will. Corey's running partner was Peter Hegelman , an experienced long-distance runner. Together they reached sixth place with a mileage of 1045 km.

Then the trace of Corey is lost, of whom even the year of birth is not clear. The most frequent mention is 1881, but in some publications the year 1878 is also mentioned.

Web links

• Albert Corey in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )

Footnotes

1. ^ Brian Cronin: Sports Legend Revealed: A marathon runner nearly died . In: Los Angeles Times , August 10, 2010.