California Track & Running News July-Aug 2013, VOLUME 39 NUMBER 3 | Page 12

legacy: I By Mark Winitz 12 ct&rn • July–August 2013 L-R Marathon icons and pioneers Lorraine Moeller, Jacqueline Hansen, Joan Benoit Samuelson, and Nina Kuscsik discussed “Women in Marathoning” the day before the Kaiser Permanente Napa Valley Marathon in March. n 1984, when Joan Benoit Samuelson won the gold medal at the first-ever Olympic Games marathon for women in Los Angeles, the world’s eyes were opened to what pioneering female runners had long known: Women are just as capable at running long distances as men—often more so. The first Olympic marathon was conducted in 1896—but only for men. It wasn’t until Bobbi Gibb challenged the prevailing misconception that women were incapable of running long distances by jumping into and unofficially finishing the “men’s only” Boston Marathon in 1966 and Katherine Switzer by unofficially—but very visibly—finishing the 1967 Boston Marathon that the issue caught the attention of the general public. The rules began to change, though slowly. Three quarters of a century after the first Olympic marathon, in 1971, the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU), the U.S. governing body for track & field at the time (which later became The Athletics Congress, and eventually, USA Track & Field, as it’s known today) relented and allowed women to officially compete in marathons. In 1972, nine women officially entered the Boston Marathon, and on June 23, 1972, the groundbreaking Title IX legislation became law. In 1974, fifty-seven women participated in the first AAU National Marathon Championship for women in San Mateo. Since then, women’s involvement in longdistance events has grown, and later boomed. According to Running USA’s 2012 “State of Sport” report, there were more than 7 million female U.S. road race finishers in 2011, a record high. Among an Arturo Ramos Women in Marathoning estimated 487,000 U.S. marathon finishers in 2011, 42 percent were women. By comparison, in 1980— before the first women’s Olympic marathon was held in 1984—only 11 percent of finishers in U.S. marathons were women. The Kaiser Permanente Napa Valley Marathon honored “Women in Marathoning” at last March’s race via a panel discussion at the event’s annual “Marathon College,” held the day before the race. The discussion, emceed by longtime running writer/editor Joe Henderson, featured the four panelists, all of whom were female icons/pioneers in various eras of the marathon from the ’60s to the ’90s: Nina Kuscsik (1972 women’s Boston Marathon champion), Jacqueline Hansen (1973 women’s Boston Marathon champion), Lorraine Moller (1992 Olympic Games marathon bronze medalist), and Joan Benoit Samuelson (winner of the inaugural women’s Olympic Marathon in 1984). Appropriately, women comprised 51% of the 2013 Napa Valley Marathon’s race field, a race record. CTRN’s Mark Winitz was on hand, capturing the vivid, colorful, and educational comments from these women about the struggles and emergence of women in long-distance running. Part 1 of this series features Kuscsik and Hansen. Part 2, in our next issue, will focus on Moller and Benoit Samuelson. We think that all long-distance runners and their coaches—regardless of their gender or age—who may not be familiar with the challenges that female runners encountered in their fight for “running equality”will find these articles enlightening.