California Track & Running News Sept–Oct 2013, Volume 39 NUMBER 3 | Page 18

CTRN-SeptOCT2013__Layout 1 9/18/13 7:51 AM Page 18

legacy:

Arturo Ramos

Women in Marathoning
Part 2

By Mark Winitz

L-R Marathon icons and pioneers Lorraine
Moller, Jacqueline Hansen, Joan Benoit
Samuelson, and Nina Kuscsik at Marathon
College the day before the Kaiser
Permanente Napa Valley Marathon.

In the last issue, we ran Part 1 of this two-part series about four iconic
female marathoners who were honored at last March’s Kaiser
Permanente Napa Valley Marathon. In a panel discussion at the
event’s annual “Marathon College” held the day before the race, the
“Women in Marathoning” presentation featured four panelists, all
of whom were female icons/pioneers in various eras of the marathon
from the late 1960s to the ’90s: Nina Kuscsik, Jacqueline Hansen, Joan
Benoit Samuelson, and Lorraine Moller. The discussion was emceed
by longtime running writer/editor Joe Henderson.
Part 1 captured the valuable contributions that Kuscsik (1972
women’s Boston Marathon champion) and Hansen (1973 women’s
Boston Marathon champion) made to the female marathoning
movement from the late 1960s to early ’80s which were instrumental
in affecting change in a previously all-male marathon world. The first
Olympic marathon for women, at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los
Angeles—in which Benoit Samuelson captured the gold medal—
culminated these valiant efforts.
Here, in Part 2, we share the experiences of Benoit Samuelson
and Moller (1992 Olympic Games marathon bronze medalist) as they
described them during the symposium in Napa.