California Track & Running News July-Aug 2013, VOLUME 39 NUMBER 3 | Page 14

continued from page 13

Doug Schwaub

That might make sense now—for many
women, maybe it’s better to start separately—
but [at the time] we felt it was women’s discrimination. So at Boston [the following April 1972] we
painted a separate starting line for ourselves on
the sidewalk. Then [at the 1972 New York City
Marathon] we [six women entered in the race including Kuscsik—Editor] had a sitdown strike at
the starting line [to protest the rule], which created so much publicity that in 1972 at the AAU
convention everything changed. From then on, it
was moving ahead to get women into the
Olympics marathon.

14 ct&rn • July–August 2013

Hansen won the 1975
Oregon Track Club Marathon
in a world record 2:38:19, the
first sub-2:40 marathon ever
run by a female.

JH: Before I ask about your involvement in the effort to win women a spot in the Olympics, I want
to ask you about a race in 1971. At that time, no
woman had [officially] broken 3 hours in the
marathon. You ran a race in New York [NYC
Marathon] which welcomed women, and you
were running against Beth Bonner. Tell us about
that race.
NK: That race gave me such room to run. It was
wonderful. I think Beth was ahead of me from the
9th mile on. She had a nice stride and rhythm. I
got a little closer to her at the last big hill in Central
Park. I think she beat me by about 44 seconds. We
both broke 3 hours for the first time, so it was a
celebration for both of us.
(Editor’s Note–Bonner, age 19, finished first
female in 2:55:22 and became the first official winner of the women’s division at NYC. Kuscsik was
second in 2:56:04.)
JACQUELINE HANSEN
A pioneering female marathoner in the early to
mid-1970s, Jacqueline Hansen was instrumental,
as a political and social activist, in gaining women
the opportunity to compete in long-distance
races. She is, perhaps, best known for winning the
1973 Boston Marathon while a student at California State University, Northridge. She was instrumental in successfully lobbying the International
Olympic Committee (IOC) to add the women’s
marathon, and later the 5000 meters and the
10,000 meters, to the Olympic Games at a time
when young women had little or no opportunity
to compete in athletics.
During her career, Hansen won 12 of her first
15 marathons. She set two marathon world
records: in 1974 at the Western Hemisphere
Marathon (a race she won three times), where her
2:43:54 was the first sub-2:45 ever run by a female,
and at the 1975 Nike/OTC Marathon in Eugene,
where she ran 2:38:19, the first sub-2:40 by a
woman. She is a Road Runners Club of America
(RRCA) Hall of Fame Inductee. In 2012, she was inducted into the USA National Distance Running
Hall of Fame.
Born in Binghamton, NY, [