1980 Boston Marathon cheat Rosie Ruiz, 66

Rosie Ruiz, who was stripped of her Boston Marathon victory in the 1980 race after cutting the course, has died aged 66.

Ms Ruiz, who was also known as Rosie Vivas, went on to become an enduring symbol of cheating in sport and died of cancer in Florida.

“It’s a colourful part of the Boston Marathon history, that’s for sure,” said Bill Rodgers, who won the men’s race that year.

“Poor Rosie, she took all the brunt of it.” An unknown who did not look like she had just run 26.2 miles, Ms Ruiz finished first in the women’s division in Boston in 1980 in a thenrecord time of 2 hours, 31 minutes, 56 seconds.

Even as she was awarded her medal and the traditional olive wreath, her competitors wondered how a woman they had never heard of – or seen on the course – could have won.

“We knew that she had jumped in. We, who knew what the marathon was, we got it,” Mr Rodgers said. “She wasn’t sweating enough, she had on a heavy shirt, she didn’t know about running.

“I was with her the next day on TV, and she was just crying her head off,” he said, adding that he thought Ms Ruiz wanted to confess.

In an era before tracking chips and electronic checkpoints, race organisers used spotters to note the bib numbers of runners going by.

Ms Ruiz did not show up there, on videotape or in any of 10,000 photographs taken along the first 25 miles of the course.

Grilled by the Boston Athletic Association about her training methods and pace, she had no answers and did not seem to recognise terms that would be common for elite marathoners.

Two Harvard students soon came forward to say they saw her join the race near Kenmore Square, about a mile from the finish.

Ms Ruiz was stripped of her title eight days after the race and Canadian Jacqueline Gareau was declared the rightful winner.

Born in Havana, Cuba, Ms Ruiz came to the US aged eight and settled in the Miami area.

According to the obituary posted by the Quattlebaum Funeral, Cremation and Event Centre in West Palm Beach, Florida, she studied piano at Wayne State College in Nebraska, moved to New York for five years and then back to Florida, where she worked as an accounts manager for a medical laboratory and as an accreditation specialist for the Better Business Bureau.

She married Aicaro Vivas in 1984 and the couple divorced just under three years later.

According to the obituary, Ms Ruiz died on July 8 and is survived by her domestic partner, Margarita Alvarez, and a brother, Robert Ruiz.

Rosie Ruiz waves to the crowd after being announced as winner of the marathon.