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Going the Distance: The Road to the 1984 Olympic Women's Marathon

2014; Routledge; Volume: 32; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/09523367.2014.958668

1743-9035

Jaime Schultz,

Doping in Sports

AbstractThe 1984 Los Angeles Games hosted, for the first time in Olympic history, a women's marathon race. It took the efforts of several important factions to accomplish the event. First, women runners demonstrated that they were capable of running great distances in increasingly faster times. Second, the popular media publicised those performances, often mitigating athletic commentary with observations about the runners' femininity, attractiveness and relationships with men. Finally, commercial sponsors joined the ranks in this marathon battle to finance important events, running circuits and advocacy groups while simultaneously promoting their own brands of commodity feminism. In the end, it took the coming together of the physical activists, media advocates and corporate champions to accomplish this milestone in sport history.Keywords:: marathonwomen's sportsOlympic Gamesdistance running1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games Notes 1. Quoted in CitationVecsey, "The Women's Olympics," 15. 2.CitationHobsbawm and Ranger, The Invention of Tradition. 3. Sport historian CitationPolley challenges this story in "From Windsor Castle." See also CitationMartin, Benario, and Gynn, "Development of the Marathon." 4. See, as examples, CitationLennartz, "'Two Women Ran'"; CitationTamini, "Women Always in the Race"; CitationMartin and Gynn, The Olympic Marathon; CitationFournaraki, "Bodies That Differ"; CitationCooper, The American Marathon; and CitationJutel, "Thou Dost Run," 17–36. 5.CitationDaniels and Tedder, "A Proper Spectacle", 70–5. 6.CitationTheberge, "Women's Athletics"; CitationDowling, The Frailty Myth. 7.CitationDunning, "Sport as a Male Preserve." 8.CitationKuscsik, "The History." 9.CitationDavis, Marathon Crasher, Kindle Locations 237–9.10. Ibid.11.CitationJutel, "Forgetting Millie Sampson."12. For example, Davis writes that Lyn Carman completed a 1966 marathon in Santa Barbara, California. See CitationDavis, Marathon Crasher.13.CitationCooper, The American Marathon, 18.14.CitationHansen, "The Women's Marathon Movement."15. Perhaps because she ran unofficially, reports of Gibb's finish sometimes contradict one another. For example, Time recorded she placed 124 out of a field of 416. "Queen of the Marathon," Time, April 29, 1966.16. Quoted in CitationBrown, "A Game Girl." See also "Queen of the Marathon."17.CitationBrown, "A Game Girl."18. In 1970, the American Caroline Walker, then 16 years old, ran a 3:02:53 in the Trail's End Marathon in Oregon to break Pede-Erdkamp's 1967 record. For more on van Aaken, see CitationKrüger, "Ernst van Aaken."19.CitationJutel, "'Thou Dost Run'."20.CitationSwitzer, Marathon Woman, 91.21. Ibid., 91–2.22. Ibid., 343.23. "Lady with Desire to Run Crashed Marathon," New York Times, April 23, 1967, 199.24. Quoted in CitationVecsey, "K. Switzer is an Old Boy," C8.25. Quoted in CitationMurdock, "Meeting Sara Mae Berman."26.CitationTemple, "Marathon Running," 13; CitationCady, "Marathon," 71.27. "Women's Debut Becomes a Highlight: Marathon," New York Times, August 5, 1984, S3.28. Quoted in CitationMurdock, "Meeting Sara Mae Berman."29.CitationSwitzer, Marathon Woman, 154.30.CitationPerinciolo, "Togetherness," 21.31.CitationHendershott, "Beth Bonner," 22; CitationSwitzer, Marathon Woman, 155, 161.32. See CitationRunner's World, 1972 Marathon Handbook, 29–30.33.CitationSwitzer, Marathon Woman, 167.34.CitationCimons, "How Women Got to Run the Distance," 50.35.CitationSwitzer, Marathon Woman, 147. Finishers included, by order of place, Sara Mae Berman (3:07:10), Nina Kuscsik (4:14:07), Switzer (then Katherine Miller, 3:54:49) and Patricia Tarnowsky (later Patricia Nell Warren, the acclaimed novelist, 4:35+). Elizabeth Franceschini and Barbara Ann Sykes failed to finish. The RRCA's 'renaissance years', from 1973 to 1978, brought important changes, including the addition of women to its logo and the creation of the RRCA Women's Distance Committee, under the presidency of Jeff Darman. At the helm of this new committee was Henley Gabeau, who created the Women's Distance Festival of women-only races.36.CitationCreamer, "Scorecard"; Switzer quoted in CitationAtkin, "Women Hit Their Stride"; Kuscsik quoted in CitationTarnawsky, "Female Long Distance," 22.37. "AAU: 'It's a Lark'," Runner's World, January 1971, 23.38.CitationCimons, "How Women Got to Run the Distance," 50.39.CitationSwitzer, Marathon Woman, 253.40.CitationHansen, A Long Time Coming, 183.41. "2:27:33 – and Waiting," New York Times, October 23, 1979, A22. Emphasis in original.42.CitationCimons, "How Women Got to Run the Distance," 47–50; CitationFerris, "Sportswomen and Medicine," 252.43. Roberto Queretani, European editor for Track and Field News, quoted in CitationHansen, A Long Time Coming, 189; CitationHinckly, "Can Woman Ever Catch Up," L7.44.CitationFerris, "Sportswomen and Medicine," 249–54; CitationSteffny and Breuer, Running for Women; CitationUllyot, Running Free; and CitationAaken, Van Aaken Method.45. Christa Kofferschläger (later Christa Vahlensieck) won in a time of 2:59:25.6. Dr van Aaken financed the event using the insurance money he collected after a car struck him while he was out running. The accident caused the loss of both of his legs.46. See CitationUllyot, "International First for Women," 20–3.47.CitationHansen, A Long Time Coming, 176.48. Quoted in CitationShatenstein, "Women's Running," 35.49.CitationCooper, "Marathon Women," 71.50.CitationHansen, "Women's Running," 38; Track and Field News, January 1980, 75.51.CitationHeinonen, Sports Illustrated Running; CitationThe Editors of Runner's World Magazine, The Complete Woman Runner.52.CitationAnderson, "From the Editor," 6.53.CitationJutel, "'Thou Dost Run'," 17.54.CitationUnderwood, "Chasing Girls."55. "Lady with Desire to Run," 67.56.CitationCreamer, "Scorecard"; "Lady with Desire to Run," 199.57. "Be Off and Running," Teen, February 1978, 82–4.58.CitationBarron and Chapin, The Beauty of Running, 32; CitationSwitzer, Marathon Woman, 336.59.CitationMauldin, "Lady on the Go," 63–4.60.CitationJutel, "Running Like a Girl," 1006.61.CitationLance, Running for Health.62.CitationUllyot, Women's Running.63.CitationBarron and Chapin, The Beauty of Running, 38.64. Ibid., 44.65.CitationEskenazi, "2 Women Marathoners," 52; CitationUllyot, Running Free.66. "New Zealand Mother Wins Marathon at Los Angeles," New York Time, November 4, 1979, S6; CitationRadosta, "Mother of Quadruplets," B4; and CitationSchreiber and Stang, Marathon Mom.67.CitationSwitzer, Marathon Woman, 187. Emphasis in original.68. Ibid., 318–9.69. Quoted in CitationMoore, "Ready to Run." See also "Avon International Women's Championship Marathon," Mother Earth News 51, 1978, 32–3. Monspart had difficulty securing permission from Hungarian authorities and, instead, circumvented the system by obtaining sanction from her countries orienteering officials (she was the 1972 orienteering champion).70. England's Joyce Smith, a 42-year-old running in just her second marathon, won in 2:36:27.71.CitationStrasser and Becklund, Swoosh: The Unauthorized Story, 275.72.CitationGoldman, Heath, and Smith, "Commodity Feminism." See also CitationCole and Hribar, "Celebrity Feminism."73.CitationCooper, "Marathon Women," 67. In the USA, distance runners also tended to be overwhelmingly white. Switzer writes that she could 'never figure why there was so little ethnic diversity in a sport so egalitarian, friendly, and inexpensive'. See CitationSwitzer, Marathon Woman, 231. Shelley McKenzie likewise maintains that few joggers of colour joined the running boom of the 1970s. CitationMcKenzie, Getting Physical, 134–5.74.CitationNike, "We Think It's Time," 2.75. International Runners' Committee Newsletter, February 1980, 1. CitationHansen, "Runners' Day in Court'," 107–8. The charter members included Joe Henderson (USA), Eleanora Mendonca (Brazil), Joan Ullyot (USA), Nina Kuscsik (USA), Doris Brown Heritage (USA), Jeff Darman (USA), Reinhart, Ken Young, Lynn Billington (England), Sarolta Monspart, Gibble, Manfred Steffny (West Germany), Arthur Lydiard (New Zealand), Miki Gorman (Japan) and Janet Heinonen. Aiding in the push for Olympic sanction was Twentieth Century Fox, which sponsored a women's international marathon along the course of the 1932 Olympic marathon route in Los Angeles. Kansas senator Nancy Landon Kassebaum introduced a resolution in support of the marathon and other long distance events for women for the 1984 Games.76.CitationThaler, "A Jolly Good Show," 16–7.77.CitationJones, "Women Marathoners," 98–9; Switzer quoted in CitationWischina, "A New Wave," 94–6.78. International Olympic Committee, Executive Board Meeting, July 11–13, 21, 25, 31, 1980, Moscow, 51–2, Olympic Studies Centre, Quai d'Ouchy, 11001 Lausanne, Switzerland (hereafter cited as IOC Archives).79.CitationQuoted in Kuscsik, "The History," 873.80.CitationAmerican College of Sports Medicine, "Opinion Statement," ix.81.CitationCimons, "How Women Got to Run the Distance," 47.82. Minutes of the Meeting of the Executive Board, Los Angeles, February 23–24, 1981, 7, IOC Archives. The only dissenting vote on the matter came from the Soviet Union. There are at least two explanations for this. First, women from Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union excelled in sprint and middle-distance races. To add an event that might threaten the countries' medal count was not appealing. A second explanation involves international politics. Because the USA and other countries decided to boycott the 1980 Games in Moscow, many suspected that Eastern Bloc countries would vote against any proposal put forward by those involved.83. International Olympic Committee, Executive Board Meeting, February 23–24, 1981, Los Angeles, Annex 4, 40–1, IOC Archives.84.CitationNike, "The Olympics," 198.85. "Return to Normalcy," International Runners' Committee Newsletter 41, January 1985, 1.86.CitationMoran, "First Women's Olympic Marathon," A1.87.CitationGross, "Women Athletes," E22.88.CitationVecsey, 'The Women's Olympics', 15; CitationBiles, "Women and the 1984 Olympics," 64.Additional informationNotes on contributorsJaime SchultzJaime Schultz is an Assistant Professor in the departments of Kinesiology and Women's Studies at Pennsylvania State University. Her research on gender, race and cultural history appears in The Journal of Sport History, The International Journal of the History of Sport, The Journal of Social History, Sociology of Sport Journal, The Journal of Sport & Social Issues and others, in addition to multiple edited collections. She is the author of Qualifying Times: Points of Change in U.S. Women's Sport (2014, University of Illinois Press) and Moments of Impact: Injury, Racialized Memory and Iowa College Football (2015, University of Nebraska Press).