Number 7 Kateryna Katiushcheva In June of 2020, while taking part in a
grueling race in her native Ukraine, 33-year-old Kateryna Katiushcheva went missing. The woman,
nicknamed the “Iron Lady”, counted herself among the country’s top runners and was on the
national team for 24-hour runs. The previous year she’d won ultra-marathons in Moldova and Kyiv.
Katiushcheva was participating in the annual Odessa Ultra-Trial Kuyalnik race, which covered 42
miles of unforgiving terrain on Kuyalnik Estuary, in the country’s south. Described as “merciless”
by one of its organizers, the marathon took place in conditions of intense heat and salty winds
that further contributed to the runners’ thirst and fatigue. When Katiushcheva failed to return,
race organizers launched a search and reported her disappearance to the police. The authorities,
who’d later be criticized for what was perceived as a slow response, initially feared she’d been
kidnapped. They traced her phone signal and Katiushcheva was found, about 6 miles from the
marathon’s finish line, roughly 11 hours after she’d been declared missing. She’d collapsed
after suffering heat stroke and dehydration while running under a blistering summer sun
and temperatures of up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Hopes for the marathoner’s survival were rekindled
after she regained consciousness in a local hospital. Unfortunately, on June the 14th,
she suffered a massive stroke and passed away. Number 6 Taylor Ceepo
After graduating from Walsh University, Ohio woman Taylor Ceepo took part in the 42nd Annual Rite Aid
Cleveland Marathon, in May of 2019. Ceepo, aged 22, had been on the women’s soccer team during
her college years and had been ranked among the state’s best soccer players in high-school.
Acquaintances described her as an “extremely fit” woman. Ceepo was less than a mile from the finish
line when she fell to the ground and became unresponsive. She was subsequently transported
to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead on arrival. The factors that had led to her passing
remained undetermined and doctors struggled to find a concrete cause, given Ceepo’s outstanding
health and athleticism. Medical experts theorized that she must’ve suffered from a preexisting
undetected condition. The university from which she’d graduated held an on-campus mass
for Ceepo while race organizers expressed their condolences online. Her passing had been the most
significant incident associated with the marathon but other racers encountered various difficulties
as well. Temperatures on the day hovered around 70 degrees Fahrenheit and, as reported by a local
media outlet, dozens of marathoners had to be treated for heat-related illnesses, dehydration,
orthopedic injuries and muscle strains. Number 5 Thomas Stanley
In September of 2019, a Kansas ultramarathoner sustained life-ending injuries as he was nearing
the end of a 31-mile race at the Elk City State Park. Ahead of the event,
there’d been meteorological reports of strong to severe storms to be expected in the region.
As 33-year-old Thomas Stanley was about a quarter mile from the finish line,
he was struck by a lightning bolt. Officials and other runners administered first
aid but the father-of-three was beyond saving. A fundraiser, in support of his children and wife,
rose to over $45,000 within 24 hours of his death. Organizers of the ultramarathon race
expressed their condolences in a Facebook post that read "Thomas' family says that the chances
of being killed by a lightning strike are about one in a million, and Thomas was truly
a one-in-a-million guy." Number 4 Claire Squires
30-year-old Claire Squires was determined to finish the London Marathon in less than
four hours, in April of 2012, as she was trying to establish a new personal record while also
raising money for charity. The young hairdresser was only about half a mile from completing the
marathon when she began to experience critical health problems. She suffered a cardiac arrest
and never regained consciousness with her death eventually linked to a dangerous energy
supplement. Squires was “passionately against” drugs, particularly after her brother had passed
away from an overdose in 2001. She ran in his memory and for Samaritans, a charity offering
emotional support, often through telephone hotlines, to anyone in distress. According to her
partner, Squires had purchased a powder, called Jack3d, from the Internet and dissolved it in a
water bottle to help her in case she “hit a wall”. The concept, common in the long-distance running
community, refers to an athlete reaching a state of extreme fatigue and energy loss after glycogen,
an energy-storing form of glucose, is depleted from the body. Jack3d contained dimethylamylamine,
or DMAA, an amphetamine-like substance that boosted energy and metabolism. It had been
banned from Canada and the US, after it was associated with the death of two soldiers
during intense physical training, but was legal and relatively popular in Britain at the time. A
coroner would later determine that the combination of DMAA and intense physical exertion had resulted
in Squires’ suffering the fatal cardiac arrest. The supplement had strained her heart by forcing
it to work much harder that it naturally would have. A few months after her passing, in August,
the UK also banned the supplement while Samaritans received the equivalent of nearly
$1.7 million in donations in Squires’ name. Number 3 Hayden Holman
In the fall of 2021, an Idaho man died while taking part in the St. George Marathon, in Utah.
22-year-old Hayden Holman had called family members,
who were anticipating his arrival at the finish line, to make sure that they were ready to take
a picture of him crossing it. He was only about 2 minutes from them but, unfortunately,
never showed up. It would subsequently be discovered that he’d collapsed and stopped
breathing while on the verge of completing the 26-mile race. Emergency personnel reacted quickly,
located Holman and attempted resuscitation but he remained unresponsive. At one point,
they were able to get his heart beating again and rushed the marathoner to a local hospital, where
he ultimately passed away. A cause of death hasn’t been officially pronounced for Holman, an athletic
young man who’d wrestled in high school and whose passions included hiking and rock climbing.
Today's topic was requested by This Fat Girl Runs, The Kidd, Aaron Burr Atwood
and Jagkkt z. If you have any other topics you'd like to learn about, subscribe & let
us know in the comments section below. Number 2 Boston Marathon Bombing
One of the most devastating incidents to have occurred during marathon events was
the Boston Marathon bombing, which took place on April the 15th of 2013. Fuelled by extremist
beliefs but unassociated with any known groups, Chechen Kyrgyzstani-American brothers Dzhokhar
and Tamerlan Tsarnaev planted two homemade explosive devices near the marathon’s finish line,
on Boylston Street, near Copley Square. The pressure cooker bombs were placed 210 yards from
each other and detonated roughly 14 seconds apart, at 2:49 pm. Chaos ensued as three people were
killed and hundreds sustained injuries, including loss of limbs and horrific shrapnel penetration.
At least 14 people suffered amputations, some out of medical necessity and others of a traumatic
nature, as a direct consequence of the blast. The airspace over Boston was restricted and several
transit services were suspended, out of concerns over the presence of more bombs. Jeff Bauman,
who’d been near one of the bombs and who’d lost both his legs in the aftermath, was able to offer
a detailed description of the suspects. On April the 18th, three days after the bombing, the FBI
released images of them to the public. Within a few hours of the release, the Tsarnaev brothers
shot and killed an officer from Massachusetts Institute of Technology Police Department while
trying to steal his service sidearm. They then stole a Mercedes-Benz SUV and, according to
investigators, spontaneously decided to go to New York City and set off more explosives in Times
Square. The SUV’s owner managed to escape, while they were at a gas station, and called the police.
The authorities began tracking the suspects through the owner’s cellphone, which had remained
in the car. On April the 19th, in Watertown, the brothers engaged the police in a violent shootout.
They threw several crude grenades, resulting in one officer being severely wounded and eventually
dying, roughly a year later. Tamerlan was shot a number of times and then run over by Dzhokhar, as
he fled the scene in the stolen vehicle, because he’d mistakenly thought him to be a wounded
officer to whom the others were administering CPR. Tamerlan subsequently died in a hospital.
An unprecedented manhunt ensued, involving SWAT teams, the FBI and thousands of police officers
from state police and neighboring towns. The younger Tsarnaev was later found by a resident
as he was hiding under a tarp, in a parked boat. The police were called and confirmed his presence
through thermal imagining, then opened fire on the boat upon noticing movement, although subsequent
reports indicated that Dzhokhar hadn’t been armed. He survived the shooting with wounds to his head,
neck, legs, and hand. The legal proceedings to determine whether or not he’ll be put to death are
still ongoing but, should capital punishment be vacated, he still faces multiple life sentences.
Number 1 Ultramarathon Disaster in China The deadliest incident in the recorded
history of marathon racing took place in May of 2021, in Jingtai County, Gansu Province, China.
One of the events consisted of a 62-mile trail running race through Yellow River Stone Forest,
and Mijiashan Hill. The stretch that included the second and third checkpoints, consisting of
elevation that peaked at 7,320 feet, was the most rugged and narrow. It wasn’t accessible by car and
the ultramarathon coordinators hadn’t assigned any staff or aid stations to the checkpoints which,
unbeknownst to them, were also in an area with almost zero cellphone signal. Because
in previous years the weather had been sunny and hot, many runners gave up their windbreakers and
showed up to the race in shorts and vests. The event’s organizers either ignored or were unaware
of warnings by the city’s meteorological center of impending cold and strong winds, issued
the night before the race. On May the 22nd, as the race unfolded, the north-facing third checkpoint
was hit by a cold front originating from Mongolia. Rain and soft hail were carried by winds of up
to 52 mph and there was a considerable drop in temperature. Runners in the lead pack, near the
7,320-foot summit at the third checkpoint, faced the full force of the cold front out in the
open. 21 of them died, many due to hypothermia, including 31-year-old former champion and record
holder Liang Jing. Those who’d managed to take refuge behind rocks found their space blankets
ravaged by winds. The race’s operator had equipped runners with GPS devices but their
distress messages never went through. The cold front had struck from 10:30 am onwards but it
wasn’t until after noon that a picture of 10 runners hugging together for warmth and shelter
was sent across the WeChat social network. Of the 172 runners that had taken the starting line,
only four made it to the fourth checkpoint, as they’d been way behind the others and largely
missed the cold front. Marathon coordinators also drastically mishandled the rescue operation,
with the most prompt effort belonging to local shepherd Zhu Keming, a man unaffiliated with the
race, who saved at least 6 marathoners by taking them to his heated yaodong cave. In the disaster’s
aftermath, disciplinary action was taken against several members of the local communist party
while the Jingtai County party secretary took his own life on June the 9th of 2021.
Thanks for watching! Would you rather complete a marathon wearing cement-filled shoes
OR walk a mile barefoot on broken glass? Let us know in the comments section below!