Ultrarunning History

59: The 100-miler – Part 6 (1927-1934) Arthur Newton

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Episode notes

In the 1920s one of the greatest British ultrarunner ever appeared, who made a serious impact on the forgotten 100-mile ultrarunning history before World War II. He was Arthur Newton of England, South Africa, and Rhodesia was a rare ultrarunning talent who had world-class ability in nearly all the ultrarunning distances from 50 km to 24-hours. Newton learned most of his serious running on a farm in remote Africa and was bold enough to step onto the world stage and beat everyone. His dominance in the early years of South Africa’s Comrades Marathon (54 miles) helped the race get off the ground to become the oldest and largest ultramarathon in the world.

But Arthur Newton’s best distance was 100 miles. With few 100-mile races to compete in during the 1920s, he resorted to participating in highly monitored solo events to prove that a farmer from Africa was the best in the world, and he was. His 100-mile experience will be shared, but also a good portion of his life story needs to be explained to understand the man, the ultrarunner, one of the greatest, Arthur Newton.