It’s track and field week at the Paris Olympics.

Yesterday, the women’s 800 wrapped up with Keeley Hodgkinson of Great Britain taking the top spot. 

As exciting as an Olympics track event always is, it didn’t compare with nearly 100 years ago, when women were first allowed to run this race. Then, it was a media frenzy. 

And not because of the pure awe at elite runner’s abilities. Instead, at the Amsterdam Olympics of 1928, the media and many sports officials were concerned about women running competitively at all. The Boston Globe’s John Hallahan described “six competitors [who] were so exhausted that they were near collapse at the finish. All fell flat on the ground.”

But the truth of that race, and the history of women’s running, is far more complex than popular accounts would lead you to believe. 

It’s a story that author Maggie Mertens tells in her new book, Better, Faster, Farther: How Running Changed Everything We Know about Women. 

Guests:

• Maggie Mertens, journalist and author of Better, Faster, Farther: How Running Changed Everything We Know about Women

Relevant Links:

• WSJ: The Long Road to Olympic Equality for Women