Prior to the start of the race on the morning of Friday, 10 April , the old priest of Marathon, Ioannis Veliotis, was scheduled to say a prayer for the athletes in the church of Saint John. Veliotis refused to bless Revithi because she was not an officially recognized athlete. The organizing committee ultimately refused her entry into the race. Officially, she was rejected because the deadline for participation had expired; however, as Olympic historians David Martin and Roger Gynn point out, the real problem was her gender. According to Tarasouleas, the organizers promised that she would compete with a team of American women in another race in Athens, which never took place.