Stylianos Kyriakides: Boston Marathon 1946

Who Stylianos Kyriakides was before 1946

Kyriakides was born on 15 January 1910 in the mountain village of Statos, near Paphos, Cyprus, according to Olympedia. At 19 he went to work in the household of British medical officer Reginald Cheverton, per Neos Kosmos, which places his start of training on Limassol beach at the same age. Kyriakides’s official biography gives a different age for the pivotal event: it says Cheverton encouraged the “now 22-year-old” Kyriakides to start running and gave him his first gear, shortly before his 1932 Pan-Cyprian Games debut — a three-year discrepancy between the two sources that is not resolved here. At his first Pan-Cyprian Games in 1932 he won several distance titles (Olympedia).

Competing for Greece at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, he placed 11th in the marathon (he did not start in the 10,000m), Olympedia records. There he met American runner Johnny Kelley, who invited him to race in Boston. In 1938 Kyriakides travelled to Boston and started the marathon, but dropped out after new shoes injured his feet; as Boston Globe sportswriter Jerry Nason later recounted, Kyriakides told him, “Someday, I’ll come back, and maybe I’ll win your Marathon” (Boston.com).

Occupation, resistance, and the decision to run again

During the four-year Axis occupation of Greece, Kyriakides sold much of what he owned — eventually including his home — to keep his family from starving, per Boston Globe reporting carried by Boston.com. Neos Kosmos reports that he took part in the Greek resistance, carrying messages to guerrilla groups.

Per Neos Kosmos, in 1943 he was rounded up with 49 other Greeks at Chalandri Square to be executed. Asked for identification, he produced his Berlin Olympics identity card; the German officer, himself a former distance runner, recognized him and spared him, while the other 49 were executed. Olympedia describes more generally that he “twice evaded execution” after being recognized as an Olympian, without giving specifics. Kyriakides’s official biography describes a related but not identical episode, dated 1942: a random arrest by a German patrol, with no mention of Chalandri Square or the count of 49. The discrepancy in year and detail between the sources is not resolved here, and it is unclear whether Olympedia’s “twice” refers to the same episode Neos Kosmos describes or to a second, separate one.

After the war, with Greece sliding into famine, Kyriakides began training again with one goal: return to Boston and draw the world’s attention to his country’s plight. “I will run for Greece,” he said at the time, per Boston.com.

The 1946 race: 2:29:27 and a shout at the finish

At the 50th Boston Marathon in April 1946, Kyriakides made it to the starting line having, per Olympedia, sold his furniture to buy a ticket to the United States, with secondary support from Greek-American benefactors George and Spyros Demeter; Boston.com names only George Demeter, and ties his sale of possessions to his family’s survival during the occupation (1941-44) rather than explicitly to funding the 1946 trip — the two accounts do not fully conflict, but they do not match either. He was so weakened by wartime deprivation that officials questioned whether he should be allowed to start, according to Boston.com.

Near the finish, running alongside defending champion Johnny Kelley, an older man in the crowd shouted “For Greece, for your children” — spurring him to pull away and win, according to two independent accounts, Olympedia and Neos Kosmos. He crossed the line in 2:29:27, the fastest marathon time in the world that year and 14 minutes faster than his own previous best (Neos Kosmos). By his family’s account, Kyriakides himself shouted “For Greece” as he finished (CBS News Boston, citing his son Dimitris Kyriakides).

Kelley’s verdict afterward: “How can you beat a guy like that? He wasn’t running for himself, he was doing it for his country” (Boston.com).

Boston’s first charity runner

The BAA’s own charity-program page states today: “Stylianos Kyriakides, the 1946 Boston Marathon champion, is largely regarded as the first fundraising runner in race history” (baa.org/charities). The BAA’s general Boston Marathon history page, by contrast, does not name him at all — its narrative jumps straight from 1936 to 1947, confirmed by opening that page on 29 September 2026.

After the win, Kyriakides toured the United States to raise awareness of Greece’s hunger crisis, per Neos Kosmos. According to his son’s account on CBS News Boston, that tour included a meeting with President Harry Truman.

The “Kyriakides Aid Package”

His son Dimitris Kyriakides told CBS News Boston that Truman authorized special assistance known as the “Kyriakides Aid Package” — “25,000 tons food, medicine and all these kinds of things.” Neos Kosmos gives the same scale of aid (“25,000 tons of aid were donated and distributed to over a million Greeks”) and adds that a further $250,000 in cash was raised. Olympedia independently confirms “over 25,000 tons of supplies.”

Boston Globe writer Jerry Nason, in a 1980 retrospective quoted by Boston.com, wrote more broadly that the drama of the win “released millions of dollars in contributions to the Greek relief campaign” — a wider, later estimate of the campaign’s overall impact, distinct from the specific 1946 aid package, and the two figures should not be added together into one number.

On his return to Greece, about one million Greeks lined the streets of Athens to greet him; a ceremony was held at the Temple of Olympian Zeus, and the Acropolis was illuminated in his honor for the first time since the occupation (Olympedia). He was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of the Phoenix by the King of the Hellenes (Olympedia).

The “Spirit of the Marathon” statue: Hopkinton and Marathon, Greece

At the 1-mile mark of the Boston Marathon course stands a 12-foot-tall statue of two Greek runners: Spyridon Louis, winner of the first modern Olympic marathon in 1896, showing the way, and Kyriakides beside him (Boston.com). The sculpture, called “Spirit of the Marathon,” was placed in Hopkinton in 2004 (Olympedia) and formally dedicated in 2006, on the 60th anniversary of his 1946 win (Boston.com).

An identical copy of the sculpture stands in the Municipality of Marathon, Hopkinton’s sister city in Greece, per Boston.com — literally closing the loop between the first Olympic marathon winner in 1896 and the man who, half a century later, ran the same distance to help save his country.

The legacy today

In 2021, marking the race’s 125th anniversary, the BAA placed a full-length banner of Kyriakides at a prominent point on the course, opposite the Consulate General of Greece in Boston, and held its first-ever opening ceremony, which included the history of Greek olive-wreath crowns for champions (Neos Kosmos, 30 September 2021).

In April 2026, 80 years after the win, his son Dimitris returned to Boston to celebrate with the BAA (CBS News Boston). The race’s Official Charity Program, launched in 1989 and now covering nearly 200 organizations, still credits Kyriakides as the runner who inspired it (baa.org/charities). Kyriakides himself died in Athens on 10 December 1987, aged 77 (Olympedia).