You are invited for a special evening with the winner of the first-ever women's Olympic Marathon. Joan also won the Boston Marathon in 1979 and 1983, in addition to many other major victories/records set.
The San Francisco Road Runners Club is honored and thrilled to welcome Joan Benoit Samuelson for its "SFRRC Community Conversation" via YouTube Live. Our conversation with Joan will be filled with something for everybody including 20 minutes of Q&A for her to answer your questions.
Coming up on thirty-six years ago, Joan became the first woman Olympic Gold Medalist in the Marathon.
"On August 5, 1984, a hush fell in Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum as the stadium’s giant screens showed the leader of the first women’s Olympic marathon entering the tunnel. For a few seconds. she was invisible to the waiting crowd, and to the world at their televisions. Then she ran out of the dark tunnel on to the track, an unassuming figure in her oversized white cap, but still bouncy, confident, and strong after 26 searing miles. And the crowd roared."
As Runner's World magazine continued to say, "that was the moment when women's running worldwide moved from the margins to the mainstream."
Joan was a pioneer for women in sports and running and as one of her friends said in the movie "There Is No Finish Line: The Joan Benoit-Samuelson Story" she never left anyone out, Joanie brought everybody with her. Winning the first-ever Olympic Women's Marathon was a gigantic step forward for women's sports, especially here in the United States, and as Bill Rodgers said, it continued to ignite the running boom.
Books have been written about her, movies made about her, and she has inspired generations.
In 1979, at age 21, Joan won the Boston Marathon.
Last year, marked the forty years since Joan Benoit Samuelson’s historic victory at Boston. She returned to the course and completed the race in 3:04. Her initial goal was hoping to come within 40 minutes of her 2:35:15 victory. She crushed that goal, finishing within 30 minutes of that time.
Today, Joan is still running (150,000 miles after winning her first Boston Marathon), making
commercials occasionally for Nike (she's still a Nike sponsored athlete) and lives with her husband in Maine - the place she grew up and still calls home. Their two kids are also runners. :)
After all those miles, Joan, in her wisdom, tells us, "miles can either do one of two things. They can either break you down, or they can make you stronger." It's only crazy until you do it.
Joan held the fastest time for an American woman at the Chicago Marathon for 32 years after winning the race in 1985. Her time at the Boston Marathon was the fastest time by an American woman at that race for 28 years. Joan is credited with winning her age group at the 2013 and 2019 Boston Marathon. The 2013 race is the fastest marathon by a woman age 55-59, but is not recognized by World Masters Athletics because of IAAF regulations on a marathon course for a world record, which Boston is not recognized under regulations.
In 1998, Joan started the Beach to Beacon 10K Road Race to give back to the running community and to support children's charities in Maine. It still does both of these things today. The race takes place along the coastline of her hometown of Cape Elizabeth and draws athletes from all over the U.S. and various parts of the world to participate in the annual event, including world-class distance runners and Olympic Marathon medalists. Joan was inducted into the Maine Women's Hall of Fame in 2000.