traderlaha.blogg.se

The required certificate of fitness and the application signature she provided were both submitted under the name 'K.V.

She registered using her assigned AAU number, and paid the full race fee. Kathrine Switzer had decided that she would run as an official competitor despite the prohibitions. But Gibb wore no runner's bib and was not an official entrant. She finished with a time of 3:21:40, ahead of two-thirds of the runners. Gibb ran the full 1966 race anyway, jumping unobserved onto the course near the starting pen in the middle of the pack.

In 1966, Bobbi Gibb had tried to enter the race officially and had been rejected by BAA Director Will Cloney with the explanation that women were physiologically incapable of running 26 miles. This exclusion of women from a premier athletic event was already drawing high-profile challenges. But it was widely understood that women were prohibited from running in official competition: the rules of the AAU, which governed the Marathon, declared that women could not compete in AAU-sanctioned races over a mile and a half.

Technically, the rule book for the Boston Marathon made no mention of gender. If you ran the distance in practice, I’d be the first to take you to Boston." By the winter of 1967, Switzer was training for the upcoming Boston Marathon, tackling courses in Syracuse and on the roads between Syracuse and Cazenovia, New York, 20 miles away. Briggs insisted a marathon was too far for a "fragile woman" to run, but he conceded to Switzer: "If any woman could do it, you could, but you would have to prove it to me. Permission was granted, and cross-country assistant coach Arnie Briggs began training with her. 1967 TrainingĪfter transferring from Lynchburg to Syracuse, Switzer sought permission to train with the men's cross-country running program. She earned a bachelor's degree there in 1968 and a master's degree in 1972. She transferred to Syracuse University in 1967, where she studied journalism and English literature. Marshall High School in Fairfax County, Virginia, then attended Lynchburg College. Her family returned to the United States in 1949. Switzer was born in Amberg, Germany, the daughter of a major in the United States Army.