1896 Olympics
The Greek discus throwers were true stylists. Each throw, as they spun and rose from a classical Discobolus stance, was more beautiful than the last. Not so with Garrett, who seized the discus in his right hand and swinging himself around and around, the way the 16 pound hammer is usually thrown, threw the discus with tremendous force. Garrett's first two throws were embarrassingly clumsy. Instead of sailing parallel to the ground, the discus turned over and over and narrowly missed hitting some of the audience. Both foreigners and Americans laughed at his efforts and he joined in the general merriment. His final throw, however, punctuated with a loud grunt, sent the discus sailing 19 centimeters beyond the best Greek competitor's Panagiotis Paraskevopoulos's mark to 29.15 metres.
American spectator Burton Holmes wrote: "All were stupefied. The Greeks had been defeated at their own classic exercise. They were overwhelmed by the superior skill and daring of the Americans, to whom they ascribed a supernatural invincibility enabling them to dispense with training and to win at games which they had never before seen." The performances were remarkable. According to James Connolly, in five of the track and field events won by Americans, they had not had a single day of outdoor practice since the previous fall.
Garrett also won the shot put with a distance of 11.22 metres and finished second in the high jump (tied equally with James Connolly at 1.65 metres) and second in the long jump (with a jump of 6.00 metres).
In the 1984 NBC miniseries, The First Olympics: Athens 1896, he was portrayed by Hunt Block. In the second episode, Garrett was portrayed as being a participant in the first Olympic Marathon, which, in reality, he wasn't.
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