Joan Benoit
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Medal record
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Joan Benoit Samuelson (born May 16, 1957) is an
Competitive life and Boston Marathon victories
Born in
After returning to Bowdoin to complete her degree, she entered the 1979 Boston Marathon as a relative unknown. She won the race, wearing a Boston Red Sox cap,[7] in 2:35:15, knocking eight minutes off the competition record. In 1981, she captured the U.S. 10,000 meter championship, posting a time of 33:37.50. Despite having surgery on her Achilles tendons two years earlier, she repeated her marathon success with a victory in 1983, setting a course record of 2:22:43. That took more than two minutes off the world's best time, set by Norway's Grete Waitz in the London Marathon only a day earlier. Her Boston record was not broken for another 11 years.[8]
Olympic success and later life
In March 1984, Benoit injured her knee during a 20-mile training run, forcing her to undergo arthroscopic knee surgery just 17 days before the United States Olympic Women's Marathon Trials were scheduled. However, she recovered from the surgery much more quickly than expected, and was the favorite in the trials, at Olympia, Washington. She beat runner-up Julie Brown by 30 seconds, winning in 2:31:04. Three months later, she competed in the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, winning the first Olympic Women's Marathon in 2:24:52, several hundred meters ahead of Grete Waitz, Rosa Mota, and Ingrid Kristiansen.[9]
Benoit enjoyed success at non-marathon distances as well, winning the prestigious Falmouth Road Race (7.1 miles) a total of six times (1976, 1978, 1981–1983, and 1985), breaking the course record on four of those occasions.
Although she won the 1985 Chicago marathon, defeating Kristiansen and Mota in an American Record time of 2:21:21 (that would last as the AR for 18 years until broken by Deena Kastor in 2003 in London),[10] Benoit was hampered for some years after her Olympic victory by injuries and struggled to compete in major races. She received the 1985 James E. Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in the United States.
Benoit wrote Running Tide (1987) and Running for Women (1995).
In 1998 she founded the Beach to Beacon 10K Road Race, a 10 km (6.2 mi) race held in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, each August, going from Crescent Beach State Park to Fort Williams Park and Portland Head Light. The race attracts many of the world's top distance runners. Elite runners often run this race and then, the following weekend, run the Falmouth Road Race on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Benoit won that race several times, and ran it last in 2022, finishing as the 69th woman overall and first in her age group.
In 2003, at age 46, Benoit won the Maine half-marathon, defeating a field dominated by runners two decades her junior, and she was faster than all but six men overall, finishing in 1:18. In 2006, she helped pace former cycling champion Lance Armstrong as he competed in the New York City Marathon. At the 2008 US Olympic Team trials, at the age of 50, she finished in 2:49:08, setting a new US 50+ record and beating her personal goal at the time of a mid-2:50s marathon. When she ran the New York City Marathon on November 1, 2009, she broke the Senior Masters record for runners older than 50 with a final time of 2:49:09.[11] On October 10, 2010, she ran 2:47:50 for 43rd place at the Chicago Marathon—the site of her American record a quarter century earlier—missing her goal of qualifying for an eighth Olympic Marathon Team Trials race by 1:50, but recording the fastest-ever performance by a woman over 52. Later that month she ran in the Athens Classic Marathon for fun and finished in 3:02, the slowest time of her career; she was not fully healed from her Chicago performance.[12] In April 2011, Joan competed in the Boston Marathon, completing the course in 2:51:29 and placing 1st in her age group. Between 2013 and 2015, Samuelson ran the Boston Marathon each year, and setting three of the four fastest marathon times for the 55–59 age group. None are recognised by the World Masters Athletics since the Boston Marathon course does not comply with IAAF regulations. Her times are 2:50:33 (2013), 2:52:15 (2014), and 2:54:26 (2015). In 2019, Benoit ran the Boston Marathon again, forty years after her 1979 win. She had hoped to be within 40 minutes of her 1979 time, but did even better than that with a time of 3:04:00, within thirty minutes of her winning time, again winning her age group (60–64).[13]
Winning the race four times, Benoit has run the
Benoit resides in
Benoit was inducted into the
In 2019, on the eve of the 40th anniversary of her first Boston Marathon win, Benoit and her daughter Abby ran together as they had done in previous marathons. Joan recorded a run time of 3:04:00, which was within 40 minutes of her original time[21] which was a promise she had made prior to competing in that year's edition of the Boston Marathon. This allowed her to win her age group (60–64) by nearly nine minutes, but falling short of the overall (3:01:30) fastest time by a woman over 60 in a marathon.
Marathoning achievements
- All results regarding marathon, unless stated otherwise
Year | Competition | Venue | Position | Notes |
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Representing the United States | ||||
1978 | Bermuda Marathon
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Bermuda | 2nd | 2:50:54 |
1979 | Boston Marathon | Boston, United States
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1st | 2:35:15 |
1980 | Auckland Marathon | Auckland, New Zealand | 1st | 2:31:23 |
1981 | Boston Marathon | Boston, United States
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3rd | 2:30:17 |
1982 | Nike OTC Marathon | Eugene, United States | 1st | 2:26:12 |
1983 | Boston Marathon | Boston, United States
|
1st | 2:22:43 |
1984 | Summer Olympics
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Los Angeles, United States
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1st | 2:24:52 |
1985 | Chicago Marathon | Chicago, United States | 1st | 2:21:21 |
1988 | New York City Marathon | New York City, United States
|
3rd | 2:32:40 |
1991 | Boston Marathon | Boston, United States
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4th | 2:26:54 |
1991 | New York City Marathon | New York City, United States
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6th | 2:33:49 |
2013 | Boston Marathon | Boston, United States
|
47th (overall) 1st (AG) |
2:50:29 |
2019 | Boston Marathon | Boston, United States
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245th (overall) 1st (AG) |
3:04:00 |
AG = Samuelson 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 recognised by World Masters Athletics because Boston is not recognised under IAAF regulations as a world record qualifying marathon course.
References
- ^ "MarathonGuide.com - Marathon Records". www.marathonguide.com.
- ^ "Bank of America Chicago Marathon". chicago-history.r.mikatiming.de. Retrieved October 24, 2018.
- ^ "Race history - Bank of America Chicago Marathon". Bank of America Chicago Marathon. Retrieved October 24, 2018.
- ^ "10 Best American Marathoners of All Time". ACTIVE.com. August 12, 2014. Retrieved October 24, 2018.
- ^ The Marathon's Maine woman, Sports Illustrated, Kenny Moore, May 2, 1983. Retrieved October 3, 2018.
- ^ "Cross Country". CWSA. Retrieved March 29, 2020.
- ^ "A Goodbye From Cool Running!". ACTIVE.com. January 12, 2021. Archived from the original on January 11, 2012.
- ^ 2004 Boston Marathon Media Guide, published by Boston Athletic Association with John Hancock
- ^ "Olympic Marathon Los Angeles 1984 XXIII Olympiad". www.marathonguide.com.
- ^ Bank of America Chicago Marathon: What You Need to Know Retrieved October 9, 2010
- ^ Joan Benoit Samuelson '79 Sets NYC Marathon Record, Campus News (Bowdoin)
- ^ "Greek For a Day". Runner's World. February 4, 2011. Retrieved March 2, 2017.
- ^ Doherty, Matthew. "Joan Benoit Samuelson easily meets her goal in 2019 Boston Marathon - The Boston Globe". BostonGlobe.com. Retrieved April 15, 2019.
- ^ Ritter, Sarah (July 28, 2018). "Another year in the Bix: 44th Quad-City Times Bix 7 'quite the sight'". Quad-City Times. Davenport, Iowa. Retrieved July 10, 2020.
- ^ "1999". Quad-City Times.
- ^ "Samuelson sets 50-plus record at NYC Marathon". USA Today. Associated Press. November 1, 2002. Retrieved November 2, 2009.
- ^ "Freeport opens brand new track and field". CBS. WGME-TV. May 18, 2018. Retrieved May 21, 2018.
- ^ Burfoot, Amby (April 24, 2014). "Monday a Special Day for Samuelson Family". Runner's World.
- ^ "Benoit Samuelson named to Hall of Fame". Sun Journal. February 18, 2000. p. C18.
- ^ Latimer, Jolene (June 22, 2017). "Female Olympic Athletes Honored Over 50 Years Later | GOOD Sports". Sports.good.is. Retrieved June 30, 2017.
- ^ McArdle, Tommy (April 15, 2019). "Joan Benoit Samuelson made good on her 2019 Boston Marathon promise; Boston.com". Boston.com. Retrieved April 15, 2019.
External links
- Joan Benoit-Samuelson at World Athletics
- Joan Benoit Samuelson at www.USATF.org
- Joan Benoit at the Team USA Hall of Fame (archive July 20, 2023)
- Joan Benoit at Olympics.com
- Joan Benoit at Olympic.org (archived)
- Joan Benoit at Olympedia