Boston Marathon turns into sprint on 50th anniversary of first women’s race
Peres Jepchirchir celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Boston Marathon women’s division by winning a seesaw sprint down Boylston Street on Monday as the race returned to its traditional Patriots’ Day spot in the schedule for the first time since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
Running shoulder to shoulder for most of the course, the reigning Olympic champion and Ethiopia’s Ababel Yeshaneh traded places eight times in the final mile, with Jepchirchir pulling ahead for good in the final 385 yards. The Kenyan finished in 2 hours, 21 minutes and 1 second, four seconds ahead of her rival.
Kenya’s Evans Chebet pulled away with about four miles to go to win the men’s race in 2:06:51, 30 seconds ahead of Gabriel Geay of Tanzania. Defending champion Benson Kipruto was third. American Daniel Romanchuk won his second career men’s wheelchair title in 1:26:58. Switzerland’s Manuela Schar won her second straight Boston crown and fourth overall, finishing in 1:41:08 in the women’s wheelchair race.
Sharing a weekend with the Red Sox home opener – the city’s other sporting rite of spring – more than 28,000 runners returned to the streets from Hopkinton to Copley Square six months after a smaller and socially distanced event that was the only fall race in its 126-year history.
Fans waved blue and yellow flags in support of the few dozen Ukrainian runners competing. Athletes from Russia and Belarus were disinvited in response to the invasion of Ukraine. Ukrainians who were unable to make it to Boston were offered a deferral or refund.
“Whatever they want to do, they can do,” Boston Athletic Association president Tom Grilk said. “Run this year, run next year. You want a puppy? Whatever. There is no group we want to be more helpful to.”
The 125th race was first postponed, then called off because of the pandemic, the first cancellation since the event began in 1897. In 2021, it was postponed until October.
This year’s race marked the 50th anniversary of Nina Kuscsik’s victory as the first official women’s winner. The first women who dared to attempt the run faced sneers and catcalls, administrative roadblocks and even physical violence from an organization originally formed to encourage the pursuit of “manly sports.” Although women weren’t welcome until 1972, Bobbi Gibb is acknowledged as the first woman to run Boston, finishing it in 1966 among the unofficial runners known as bandits. A year later, Kathrine Switzer signed up as “KV Switzer” – there was no spot on the form for gender and received an official bib. Race director Jock Semple was so irate that he tried to shove her off the course.
“You can imagine how that must be challenging, where you are running and people don’t want to see you running,” said Mary Ngugi, who has campaigned against domestic abuse toward female athletes in Kenya.
“But now we can run, we can train, we can do whatever we want. We’ve been given these opportunities to feel like we are equal with the men. It’s amazing. Being here and being able to run, being able to be free and as a woman, it’s a great thing.”
Gibb’s three first-place finishes from 1966 to 1968 and three for Sara Mae Berman from 1969 to 1971 were originally considered the Boston Marathon’s “Unofficial Era”; they have recently been upgraded in the record book to “Pioneer Era.”
But it is Kuscsik’s 1972 victory that is celebrated this year.
“It sounds so outrageous to say that women are ‘allowed to run.’ That 50 years ago, ‘they finally let us be allowed to run,”’ Switzer said. “But here we are.”
Valerie Rogosheske, who finished sixth in the 1972 race, ran again this year, along with her daughters, and also serve as the honorary starter for the women’s elite field. Five of the original eight women, including Switzer and Berman, were in town for the celebration.
As it has since first paying the winners in 1986, the Boston Athletic Association awarded equal first prizes to the men’s and women’s winners – $150,000 apiece this year.
And the course does not play favorites, either.
“We do the same work,” Ngugi said. “The roads don’t care. We’ve still got the same hills.”