Women & the Marathon
The first woman known to have run the marathon was Stamatis Rovithi, who ran the proposed Olympic course in March of 1896, a month before the first modern Olympics took place in Athens.
Another Greek woman, known only as Melpomene, tried to enter the Olympic marathon, but was turned down. However, she ran along the side of the course when the race began and eventually joined the male runners. She reached the stadium about an hour and half after the winner, Spiridon Louis. Melpomene had accomplished a lot: Only eight of the 15 male starters finished the race.
The first woman officially timed in a marathon was Violet Piercy, who ran a 3:40.22 on October 3, 1926. But distance running for women suffered a serious setback at the 1928 Olympic Games, the first to include women's track and field events.
Three women collapsed during the 800-meter run in 1928. As a result, no races for women beyond 200 meters were run at the Olympics until 1960, when the 800-meter was restored to the program.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the tremendous interest in recreational running spilled over into competitive events; that fact, combined with the women's liberation movement, gradually opened the door for women to compete in longer distances.
The first woman to be timed in an official marathon was Violet Piercy of Great Britain, on Oct. 3, 1926. By default, her time of 3:40:22 was a record until Merry Lepper of the United States ran a 3:37.07 on Dec. 16, 1963.
Women runners were victims of a kind of Catch-22. They were barred from running in marathons because, it was said, a woman couldn't safely run that distance. And, because they weren't allowed to run, they couldn't prove that they were capable of it.
Two of them, though, did run in the Boston Marathon. The first was Roberta Gibb, who sneaked into the field in 1966 and finished with an unofficial time of 3:21.25.
The following year, Gibb did it again and Kathrine Switzer, who officially entered the race as "K. J. Switzer," also ran. This time, officials forced Gibb off the course shortly before she reached the finish line, but they couldn't get to Switzer, who was protected by male friends, and she crossed the line.
Because of adverse publicity over their attempts to get Gibb and Switzer out of the race, Boston Marathon officials decided in 1968 that they wouldn't prevent women from running. However, women still weren't allowed to enter the race officially.
The first big breakthrough came in 1971, when the New York Marathon added a women's division. The Boston Marathon did the same the following year.
Within a relatively short time, women had many more opportunities to run the marathon. The first all-women's marathon was run on Oct. 28, 1973, Waldniel, West Germany. A year later, 40 runners from seven countries entered the first Women's International Marathon Championship at Waldniel.
The Amateur Athletic Union was an early backer of the women's marathon. The AAU began staging an annual national championship race in 1974.
At the urging of Switzer, who had become director of the Women's Sports Foundation, Avon Products sponsored a Women's International Marathon in Atlanta, Georgia, in March of 1978. The 1979 event, in Waldniel, was a major success, drawing more than 250 runners from 25 countries.
Support was building for a women's marathon at the 1984 Olympics, led by the International Runners Committee. The New York Times editorialized in favor of the idea and Nike ran full-page ads in runner's magazines advocating the race.
The marathon is considered a track and field event, and adding a new race to the Olympic program requires sanctioning by the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF), the sport's international governing body. Normally, a new event is approved by the IOC four years before it's actually added to the Olympic program.
Adriaan Paulen, president of the IAAF, was sympathetic to the cause, but he wanted to move slowly. The women's 1500-meter, which had become an Olympic event in 1972, was the longest race on the program at the time.
Paulen had been trying for some time to get IOC to add the 3,000-meter run, to be followed in due course by the 5,000- and 10,000-meter races and then, finally, the marathon. He was afraid that pushing for the longest race of all might draw support away from the other events.
Under Paulen's leadership, though, the IAAF agreed to add the women's marathon to World Cup meets beginning in 1981 and to the World Track and Field Championships beginning in 1983.
The Tokyo International in November of 1979 was the first women's marathon sanctioned by the IAAF. Paulen made a point of going to Tokyo to watch the race. The level of competition was so impressive that Paulen announced he would lobby for inclusion of the marathon at the 1984 Olympic Games.
Further support came in January of 1980 from the American College of Sports Medicine, which issued a public statement that distance running posed no medical dangers "for the healthy, trained female athlete." The ACSM recommended that women should be allowed to compete at the same distances as men.
When the IOC Executive Board met in July of 1980, during the Moscow Olympics, Paulen gave his full support to adding the women's marathon, as well as the 5,000- and 10,000-meter runs, to the Olympic program in 1984. However, the IOC put off a decision until February of 1981.
On the final day of the Moscow Olympics, the third Avon International Marathon was run in London. For the first time, five finishers broke the 2:40 barrier, and the press coverage was certainly not lost on members of the IOC Executive Board.
At its meeting on Feb. 23, 1981, the Executive Board not only approved the women's marathon, but agreed to waive the four-year rule so that the event could be added to the 1984 Olympics, to be held in Los Angeles.
The full membership of the IOC approved that decision at a historic meeting in September of 1981. Women members were also elected to the IOC for the first time.