Bobbi Gibb Ran the Boston Marathon in 1966 Without a Number
Bobbi Gibb hid in the bushes at the start, jumped into the pack after the gun, and finished before two-thirds of the official field.
On April 19, 1966, Roberta "Bobbi" Gibb crouched behind forsythia bushes at the start of the Boston Marathon in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, wearing a hooded sweatshirt over her brother's bermuda shorts. The Boston Athletic Association had returned her entry application two months earlier with a note explaining that women were "not physiologically capable" of running 26 miles and that the BAA had no category for female runners. She trained anyway and drove from San Diego in four days.
When the gun fired, she joined the pack partway through and ran without a number. The crowds along the route noticed her — some jeered, most cheered. Governor John Volpe of Massachusetts shook her hand at the finish line. She crossed in 3 hours, 21 minutes, and 40 seconds, finishing ahead of 290 of the 415 men who had official entries.
Gibb returned in 1967 and 1968 and finished ahead of the first officially entered woman each time. Kathrine Switzer ran with an official bib in 1967 — obtained by registering as "K.V. Switzer" — and race official Jock Semple attempted to pull her off the course. Her boyfriend pushed Semple aside. The photographs of that moment ran nationally.
The BAA admitted women as official entrants in 1972, and Nina Kuscsik won that first official women's division. The BAA retroactively recognized Gibb's 1966, 1967, and 1968 finishes in 1996, thirty years after her first run.
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