OpinionDespite duelling legacies, history has room for more than a few female running pioneers
As the Boston Marathon prepares to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first woman entrant in the race, the truth is complicated
Pioneers are rarely born. They are manufactured, some unwittingly while others knowingly complicit. However, virtually every pioneer shares a common trait; they are hewn by ignorance and injustice, hence there is no shortage of courageous and undaunted women toiling tirelessly for gender equality.
There are, however, a few iconic and galvanising images that capture the struggle and none in sports was more powerful than the picture of 20-year-old Kathrine Switzer running in the 1967 Boston Marathon.
Fifty years ago the Boston Marathon was a seminal event unto itself. The most prestigious annual running race in the world, the only award more cherished than the winner’s wreath was an Olympic marathon gold medal.
Well, for a man at least because in 1967 there was no women’s Olympic marathon. In fact, there were no women in the Boston Marathon, either.
One year earlier, 23-year-old Roberta “Bobbi” Gibb had applied to enter the 1966 Boston Marathon only to receive a letter from race director Will Cloney.
“This is an AAU men’s division race only,” he wrote. “Women aren’t allowed, and furthermore are not physiologically able.”
This kind of attitude now seems like something from the stone age. Of the 27,488 runners who started the 2016 Boston Marathon, 12,166 were women and 96.5 per cent of them finished the race.
But considering the first female Olympic marathon medal was only awarded in 1984 in Los Angeles, competitive distance running for women is still relatively embryonic.