Jerome Drayton
1969 Fukuoka Marathon
Drayton’s i nfamous record was set at t he 1975 Fukuoka Marathon – at a time when athletes were happy to receive travel expenses – but few realize the Toronto native had also won this prestigious Japanese race six years earlier, in 1969.
Fukuoka was widely viewed as the unofficial world championships, and winning in a non-Olympic year was tantamount to receiving a number-one ranking from the esteemed Track and Field News. Entry for the elites was by invitation. “In those years, Fukuoka was the most prestigious marathon in the world,” Drayton emphasizes. “I did have an invitation, but they withdrew it, for some reason. I never did know why. But the Canadian Track and Field Association ended up paying for my trip.”
In the days leading up to the race, the organizers provided the elite field with traditional Japanese hospitality, but Drayton, who had set a Canadian record of 2:12:00 in Detroit less than two months earlier, preferred to be alone and avoid the one-upmanship that often surfaces when athletes gather. While others were dining with the hosts, he would eat quickly and slip out of the hotel to go for a walk.
“The race itself was fairly easy,” Drayton declares. “I took the lead almost right away. We started the race with two laps around the track, and after that I didn’t see anyone. I heard after the race that Mamo Wolde of Ethiopia [the reigning Olympic champion] dropped out at about 21 km. He didn’t like the cold. It was raining pretty hard.” The European champion, Ron Hill, finished second.
After the race, which Drayton won in a new Canadian record of 2:11:23 (making him the third-fastest marathoner in history, at the time), the organizers arranged an evening out. This time he was a willing participant. “We all drank sake,” he recalls. “Most of the international runners and the leading Japanese runners were there, and we had a good time.” A few weeks later, when Track and Field News published their world rankings, Drayton had earned his coveted number-one ranking – the only Canadian marathoner ever to do so.
Drayton also won the 1977 Boston Marathon. But he was not the only Canadian to wear the coveted Boston laurels in the modern era. André Viger became the first Canadian winner of the wheelchair division in 1984, and he won again in 1986 and 1987. This was at a time when wheelchair racing was just beginning to develop professionally.