Clarence DeMar DeMar did not return to serious competition until 1922, when he again won the Boston marathon in a course record 2:18:10. He repeated the victory in 1923 and 1924. In the latter year the full Olympic distance – 26 miles, 385 yards – was run. He was selected as one of the six runners on the U.S Olympic marathon team for the 1924 Summer Olympics, where he finished third. DeMar continued his success with a second-place finish at the 1925 Boston marathon, and a third-place finish the next year. He followed that with five consecutive marathon victories: at the Baltimore
Marathon later recognized by the race organizers as the women's winner for that year, as well as 1967 and 1968. The length of an Olympic marathon was not precisely fixed at first, but the marathon races in the first few Olympic Games were about , roughly the distance from Marathon to Athens by the longer, flatter route. The exact length depended on the route established for each venue. The International Olympic Committee agreed in 1907 that the distance for the 1908 London Olympic marathon would be about 25 miles or 40 kilometres. The organisers decided on a course of 26 miles