The 13 Most Important Boston Marathons

The first Boston Marathon had just 15 starters and 10 finishers, but it was big news nonetheless. All the Boston newspapers covered it (above, the Boston Globe’s articles), no doubt because it was organized by the rich and powerful Boston Athletic Association (BAA). The gentlemen of the BAA considered Boston the Athens of the United States, so they decided to host their own marathon footrace a year after the first Olympic Marathon of April, 1896. The Boston Marathon was a serious show from day one, proving to proud Bostonians that their city was indeed the “hub” of the universe.

At almost 42, Clarence DeMar won his seventh—a feat not likely to be matched. With his multiple victories spanning the years 1911 to 1930, he largely erased the belief that marathon running was a young man’s folly likely to wear out the human heart. In tests at the Harvard Fatigue Lab, DeMar was found capable of running 7:00 miles without producing any “exhaust acid”—that is, lactic acid. DeMar died at 70 from stomach cancer, but an autopsy investigated his cardiac health. It found some evidence of atherosclerosis, but also showed that his well-trained heart had developed collateral arterioles to provide plenty of oxygen.

John Adelbert “Old John” Kelley won the Boston Marathon twice, a decade apart, but is much better known for his amazing longevity. After dropping out of his first two Bostons, Kelley ran every year from 1928 to 1992 except for 1968, when hernia surgery sidelined him. In all, he started Boston 61 times and finished 58 times. In addition to his two victories, Kelley (pictured above in front of a statue depicting him and marathoner John J. Kelley) finished second six times.

Through most of its first half-century, the Boston Marathon was a race where tough young men pitted themselves against other tough young men to see who was—you guessed it—tougher. The marathon also fostered a certain amount of spectator betting and jousting for club and national honors by the runners. In 1946, humanitarian fundraising made its first appearance. Stylianos Kyriakides, an emaciated Greek runner, sought victory to publicize the post-World War II economic plight of his homeland, which had been devastated by Nazi Germany. He succeeded, returning to Athens with cash and 25,000 tons of American aid. He was greeted by more than one million jubilant Athenians. In recent decades, charity fundraising has become a big part of the Boston Marathon.

John J. Kelley felt the burden of American hopes in 1957 because no American had won the Boston Marathon since John A. Kelley in 1945. Likewise, no member of the BAA’s running club had ever won the organization’s prize event. But John J. (no relation to John A.) came to the marathon with credentials unmatched by previous American marathoners. He was the first with fast high school and college track performances. To these, he added an adventurous spirit, born of his love for great literature and free-thinking, from Henry David Thoreau to Jack Kerouac. In 1957, speed, spirit, and hometown emotion prevailed, with Kelley breaking the tape in front of the Lenox Hotel. He remains the only member of the BAA running club to win the BAA Boston Marathon.

Women had secured the right to vote, swum the English Channel, and flown solo across the Atlantic decades earlier, but no woman attempted the Boston Marathon until 1966. Gibb began by asking for a race application. Her request came back: No, you can’t run; women aren’t allowed to run the marathon and aren’t capable of handling the distance anyway. So she took a bus across the country (from San Diego), got her mother to drive her to Hopkinton, hid in bushes near the start line, and jogged into the middle of the all-male field. The guys were delighted to see her, even though she beat three-fourths of them in an impressive 3:21:40. Gibb opened the door to all who followed, including Kathrine Switzer, Sara Mae Berman, Nina Kuscsik, Joan Benoit, and many more. Their participation in the Boston Marathon marks the event’s single biggest, and best, historical change.

[Roberta Gibb, the First Lady of Boston]

In 1980 an imposter named Rosie Ruiz jumped into the Boston Marathon with one mile to go, and crossed the finish line as first woman. (Above, police officers help her in the moments after she finished.) She probably didn’t plan to win the race, and was clearly unprepared for the media attention, not to mention questions like, “What are intervals?” (She had no clue.) Many marathon veterans like men’s winner Bill Rodgers quickly questioned her legitimacy, and runners began sharing a joke: “Did you hear about the Rosie Ruiz panty hose? They’re guaranteed not to run.” Still, in an era before timing mats and multiple video cams, it took BAA president Will Cloney more than a week to disqualify Ruiz and award the coveted laurel win to Canadian Jacqueline Gareau.

Sixteen months before her 1984 Olympic Marathon win, Joan Benoit blasted out of Hopkinton at a seemingly reckless pace. She hit 4:47 at the mile, 31:48 at 10K, and 1:08:23 at the halfway mark. The marathon world record stood at 2:25:29—the time Grete Waitz had run one day earlier in London. Benoit might have cracked but didn’t. She hit the tape in 2:22:43, nearly three minutes faster than Waitz’s record. In the next year’s Olympic Marathon, Benoit bested Waitz, the silver medalist, by one minute, 26 seconds. The two became great friends, with Benoit asking Waitz to be godson to her second-born, Anders.

[Joan Benoit Samuelson Crushes Goal With 3:04 Boston Marathon Time]

From day one, the BAA had insisted that the Boston Marathon must remain an amateur event like the Olympics. This worked fine for many years, but when the time came for change, the BAA stubbornly failed to respond. It wouldn’t even pay travel expenses, believing that top runners should want to race the Boston Marathon for its reputation alone. They didn’t. In 1984 and 1985, the only world-class runner at Boston was Geoff Smith (who won both years), and he only entered because he lived nearby. In 1986, the John Hancock Insurance Co. became the prime sponsor, and the BAA agreed to the necessity for prize money. Rob de Castella was invited from Australia, set a course record 2:07:51, and received a public $60,000 for his effort (and much more in “personal service” agreements). Two years later, Kenyan Ibrahim Hussein became the first East African to win Boston; many more would follow.

In the first half of the 1990s, Boston drew about 9,000 runners per year. Organizers figured that the 100th Boston might attract a few thousand more, so they added slots for charity runners and lucky lottery winners. They miscalculated just one thing: how many new and veteran American marathoners would train their butts off to qualify for the historic centennial running. This number eventually reached 27,000, swelling total entries to more than 38,000, at a halcyon time when a qualifying performance actually meant you could enter the main event. In prerace celebrations, the BAA finally awarded winner’s medals to pioneers Bobbi Gibb (1966–68) and Sara Mae Berman (1969–1971), each a three-time first woman before the first official women’s race of 1972. Fittingly, Uta Pippig also became a threepeat women’s winner in 1996, while Moses Tanui won the men’s race.

The bombing in 2013 made world headlines when three spectators died near the finish line, while 16 lost limbs, and hundreds more were injured. (Injuries to marathon runners were relatively minor.) The two homemade pressure cooker bombs exploded at 2:49 p.m., well after the top finishers had reached Copley Square but with thousands still on the course. The manhunt for the bombers consumed the city of Boston for four days, and a policeman died in the pursuit. As tragic as the bombing proved to be, it also showed that the BAA, the local police, and the Boston medical community were well prepared for such an emergency. In the months that followed, the shocked city and marathoners everywhere supported and energized each other around the words “Boston Strong.”

No American man had won the Boston Marathon since Greg Meyer in 1983. No one expected an American to win in 2014—not against a deep and talented field of East Africans. They made the mistake of discounting Meb Keflezighi, believing him an “old man” past his prime at just two weeks shy of his 39th birthday. But Keflezighi, caught up in the high emotion of the post-bombing marathon and wearing a number on which he had hand scrawled the names of the four who died the previous year, made an inspired midrace breakaway. He was never caught. He broke the tape in an improbable but brilliant victory that epitomized the spirit of the sun-drenched day with the largest, most enthusiastic spectator crowd ever and 35,671 runners—second only to the centennial Boston of 1996.

From the weather to the winners to the surprise runners making the podium, the 2018 Boston Marathon was one for the ages. And the biggest moment was that for the first time in 33 years, an American woman wore the laurel wreath on Boylston. Desiree Linden, a two-time Olympian, won her first major marathon title in 2:39:54. It was Linden’s sixth time competing in Boston, and her knowledge of the course and trademark no-nonsense grit finally paid off.

“It seemed so not my year,” Linden said after the race. “I just expected it was a thing where it was going to be a rebuilding [race]. I know I have a lifetime of mileage. When you’re not consistent, that’s the thing that kind of sits on your mind. You didn’t do the work. Even though I’ve been doing it forever, it just felt like in the present, you didn’t do the work. You’re not going to win, you don’t deserve to win, you didn’t show up every day. ”

Tom Derderian is author of the newly updated (2017) Boston Marathon: Year-by-Year Stories of the World’s Premier Running Event, and executive producer of Boston, the official Boston Marathon documentary, showing nationwide on April 19. He ran his fastest Boston Marathon, 2:19:04, in 1975.