[1] During the decade of the early 1900s, Sherring, from Hamilton, Ontario[2] was acknowledged to be a world class marathoner.

However, it was left up to him, a working man with meager resources (he was a brakeman at the Grand Trunk Railway), to finance his journey to Athens.

[citation needed] At the marathon race, the 45 kg (99 lb) Sherring proceeded at a steady pace, at one point a half-mile behind the leaders, before taking the lead at about the fifteen mile mark and finishing seven minutes before the next runner.

[7] Upon his triumphant return from the marathon, Sherring quit athletics and worked as a customs officer in Hamilton until his retirement in 1942.

Sherring is thought to have inspired the founders of Panathinaikos to adopt the shamrock as the Greek multi-sport club's official emblem in 1918.