The Boston Marathon was held for the first time on Patriot's Day in 1897, and since then every third Monday in April has been considered the start day. Officially, women were not allowed to participate in the Boston Marathon until 1972. Roberta "Bobby" Gibb in 1966 was recognized as the first woman to take part in this race. A year later, Katherine Switzer was the first woman to start with her own running number. She finished despite a scandalous incident during which Jock Semple tried to rip off her number and force her out of the race.
It is the rules of Catherine Switzer that will be discussed in this article.
When in 1967 Katherine Switzer took her place at the start of the Boston Marathon in a stretched gray sweater. She was going to make history: Catherine was the first female participant of this marathon, who officially started with her own starting number. A year before, Roberta Gibb took part in this race, but she did not have her own starting number, that is, in fact, she just ran alongside other participants.
While it was believed that the woman was simply physically unable to overcome the marathon distance — 42 kilometers and 195 meters, or 26.2 miles — Catherine was preparing hard for this race under the guidance of her coach Arnie Briggs.
In her second year at university, Switzer decided to prove that this theory was wrong. During the race, she was running alongside her trainer Briggs and boyfriend Thomas Miller, and then Jock Sempler, the official representative of the Boston Marathon, ran up to her and tried to rip off her starting number. He wanted to force her to leave the race because she was a woman. Briggs started shouting at the representative to leave the participant alone, and Miller decided to act more decisively and simply pushed the Sampler away from Catherine.
Someone in the crowd advised her never to repeat such a thing again. After this incident, a shocked Switzer finished and proved by her example that women can achieve amazing results not only in running, but also in women's sports in general. Due to her unwillingness to maintain the status quo and maintain fictional restrictions, Catherine learned several important life lessons for herself.
Switzer and Briggs carefully studied the rules of participation in the marathon and did not find there any ban on the participation of women in the race. Moreover, there were no items at all that would give any advantages depending on gender. Switzer denies that she tried to hide until the start that she is a woman, and this stretched training suit was the result of bad weather on the day of the start, and her signature — K. V. Switzer — has always been like that.
She also knew that she would attract attention anyway, as she was the first woman with an official starting number in the history of the Boston Marathon. But she did not expect at all that her participation in the race would become an international event and take on a political color.
Despite the fact that Catherine did not violate the rules of participation in the marathon, she still became an outcast. After Switzer's participation in the 1967 race, the Boston Marathon remained an exclusively men's competition for the next four years. In 1972, women were officially allowed to participate in the Boston Marathon. The admission rules and the minimum qualifying time were the same as for men: 3 hours and 30 minutes. During 1976-1977, the number of participants almost doubled, increasing from 78 to 141.
After a race time of 4 hours and 20 minutes, Switzer entered a period of polarization that lasted several years. She received hate mail and negative publications. One journalist wrote that he hates female runners even more than women who play golf. All this time, Catherine tried to disconnect from this torrent of hatred. She continued to work with fan mail and ignored hate mail. But what especially surprised her was the angry letters from women, not from men.
Sometimes the people who benefit the most from change are the biggest opponents of that change. In this situation, many women would rather be stuck with a devil they know than with a demon they don't know. They were just afraid. Subsequently, some of Catherine's most ardent critics became her friends.
The sampler disqualified Switzer from participating in the race, then she was expelled from the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU). Membership in this union involved participation in races, and exclusion from it did not allow Switzer to take part in some events. And then Switzer decided to take matters into her own hands and eliminate this problem in her own way, thus making running more accessible to women.
This can be compared to the excommunication of a Catholic from the church. It was the worst thing that could have happened to an athlete, but at the moment when she was expelled, Catherine just sent everyone away.
Fuck you! Why do I need an organization that treats me like this?!
Switzer continued competing, returning to the Boston Marathon in 1970 and winning the New York Marathon in 1974. She proposed her idea of organizing running events to Avon, where she started working in 1977 in order to create and launch the Avon International Running Circuit. The latter eventually held 400 races in 27 countries of the world, in which more than a million women took part. Catherine's efforts helped demonstrate that there was enough international representation to make the women's marathon part of the Olympics. It was Katherine Switzer who was the important component that allowed this to happen in 1984.
Switzer was a motivational speaker at The Day after the Boston Marathon. She told her story to local Rotary Clubs and school teams. Today she is a very popular speaker, and in 2007 she published her memoirs Marathon Woman: Running the Race to Revolutionize Women's Sports. Also, for quite a long period, she was a TV journalist and covered the Boston Marathon every year, including the tragic 2013. Then two explosions thundered at the finish line, as a result of which three people were killed and more than 280 people were injured. Despite this, 2014 gathered just as many people who wanted to try their hand at this race.
Runners run for freedom. That's the reason they're running. And anyone who can run will definitely come back here next year. Because they, these runners, are the most determined, persistent and fearless people!
Switzer continues her activities: she launched a clothing line, and also organized a series of new events, which are named after her starting number at the first Boston Marathon — 261. Catherine calls this movement "261", it helps women to start running. The main concept is based on the stories of women who turned to her and said that her own story became an inspiration for them. The first "261" event took place in March 2015 in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. In 2016, it is scheduled for April 10. The goal is not the competition itself, but the creation of a community of like-minded people who would help women defend their rights and take an active part in running events.
What we take for granted is still banned or highly undesirable in some countries. For example, there was no women's team in Saudi Arabia at the 2008 Olympics. In 2012, their representatives announced that women would take part in the Olympic Games in London. And it was only in 2013 that cycling for women was allowed for the first time in the same country exclusively in parks or other recreation areas.
