Deba wants to break the tape

BOSTON — Buzunesh Deba will leave the Boston Marathon with one champion’s medal this week. She would like to make it two.

The Ethiopian, 29, inherited the 2014 title this December when Kenya’s Rita Jeptoo was stripped of her victory for testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs. Jeptoo joins Rosie Ruiz, who was caught cutting the course in 1980, as the only people to be disqualified from the Boston Marathon after breaking the tape on Boylston Street.

“She took my chance,” Deba said last week after returning to Boston, where she has also finished third and seventh.

When Ruiz took a shortcut, she deprived Jacqueline Gareau of breaking the tape. Race officials, immediately skeptical of Ruiz, made it up to Gareau with a substitute victory ceremony and even had her cross the finish line again — this time in street clothes. But Gareau’s victory was in the race’s amateur era, so there was no cash to recover.

Jeptoo, whose 2006 and 2013 victories remain unchallenged, claimed $150,000 for the victory and $25,000 for setting a course record. Both legally belong to Deba, whose time of 2 hours, 19 minutes, 59 seconds remains the fastest in Boston Marathon history, but the Boston Athletic Association would have to claw it back from Jeptoo. “We are trying,” CEO Tom Grilk said.

For Deba, it was costly. All the after-the-fact ceremonies, medals and even prize money — if she ever gets it — wouldn’t make up for opportunities lost when she wasn’t able to capitalize on being a returning champion. “When you are the champion, the next year, the appearance fees, the contracts, everything” is more lucrative, the two-time New York City Marathon runner-up said.

Deba has a chance to steal back the spotlight today when she joins a field of more than 30,000. Among them: defending champion Atsede Baysa of Ethiopia and Desi Linden, who’s trying to become the first American woman to win Boston since 1985.

The men’s field includes defending champ Lemi Hale, who last year completed Ethiopia’s first sweep; 2012 winner Wesley Korir; and American Meb Keflezighi, who is planning to retire in the fall.