170: Old Sport Campana (1836-1906) – Part Three

By 1880, “Old Sport” Peter Napoleon Campana (1836-1906), a fruit and nut peddler from Bridgeport, Connecticut, had established himself as an odd anomaly in the very popular spectator sport of six-day indoor races held in arenas in northeastern America. He had not yet won a race but would almost always stick it out to the end of the six days when usually 75% of the other runners would quit before the end. People would pay to come watch the races he was in, specifically to watch him run. Race directors would promise him a salary just to be in their races. No one ever could predict what unusual and amusing antics he would perform during a race.



He seemed to never be formally training, but perhaps with all the miles he put in pushing his cart, he was able to regularly run more than 300 miles in a six-day race.



Campana was unusually “unbalanced.” When some spectators mocked him, he would punch them in the face and then continue running. The crowds would roar with approval and the race management would do nothing. The New York Times wrote, “Napoleon Campana, better known to the world as ‘Old Sport,’ is called the clown of the walking matches, and a race without ‘Old Sport’ in it would be a novelty.”