Her bib number would come to represent fearlessness in the face of adversity for female runners ever since. cummings, seemed like a "cool, writerly" thing to do. Plus, she said she wanted to be a writer, and using her initials, like J.D. She said she used her initials because her first name was misspelled on her birth certificate, Kathrine, and she was tired of repeating the error. When Switzer completed the 26-mile trial, Briggs insisted she sign up officially.
"No dame ever ran the Boston Marathon!" coach Arnie Briggs told her, according to her memoir, "Marathon Woman." But if she could run the distance in practice he promised to take her to Boston.
Even her coach at Syracuse - where Switzer trained with the men's cross-country team - told her the distance was too long for "fragile women." Nor was there a spot on the entry form to select gender.īut in those days women rarely participated in professional or competitive sports. As she tells it, there were no official written rules saying only men could enter the race.
Unlike Gibb, Switzer managed to score a bib by signing up with her initials, K.V. "I said, 'This is going to change my life, maybe going to change women's sports and change the world.'" "Everything changed," she told CNN affiliate WBZ-TV. After all, another woman, Roberta Bingay Gibb, had completed the Boston Marathon the year before without a bib.īut the photo exposed the ugly nature of sexism in sports, thrusting Switzer into the spotlight and altering the course of her life.
Switzer has said she did not intend to break barriers by entering the race. Now 70, with 39 marathons under her belt, it will be her first time running the Boston race since 1976 and her first marathon since 2011. The incident was captured in an iconic photo that turned Switzer into a role model and launched her career as an advocate for women's equality in sports. Now, 50 years later, Kathrine Switzer will return to the Boston Marathon starting line wearing the same number an official tried to rip off her clothing in the 1967 race. BOSTON - A 20-year-old Syracuse University journalism student made history in 1967 by becoming the first woman to officially enter the Boston Marathon.
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