The Women Who Opened Boston

Not allowed to run

In the 1960s the rules of American amateur athletics did not let women race more than about a mile and a half. When Bobbi Gibb wrote to enter the 1966 Boston Marathon, the race director replied that women were not physically able to run that far.

Gibb had trained for two years, sometimes covering 40 miles in a day. She travelled across the country by bus, hid in bushes near the start in Hopkinton and joined the race once about half the field had set off.

Bobbi Gibb, 1966

Runners around her were friendly, and spectators cheered once they realised a woman was in the race. Gibb finished in 3 hours 21 minutes and 40 seconds, ahead of about two thirds of the men. She ran again in 1967 and 1968 and was the first woman home both times.

In 1996 the Boston Athletic Association officially recognised her as the women's winner for 1966, 1967 and 1968.

Kathrine Switzer and bib 261

In 1967 Kathrine Switzer, a student at Syracuse University, entered under the name K. V. Switzer, the way she normally signed her name, and received bib number 261. During the race, an official tried to tear the number from her, but her coach and boyfriend, who were running with her, held him off.

Switzer decided she had to finish, because quitting would have told the world women could not do it. She completed the course in about four hours and twenty minutes, and photos of the moment spread around the world.

What changed

Pressure from women runners grew, and in 1972 Boston opened an official women's race. Switzer finished third that year. In 1984 the women's marathon joined the Olympic Games for the first time.

Switzer ran Boston again in 2017 at the age of 70, wearing 261 once more, alongside more than 13,700 women. That year the race retired bib 261 in her honour. Her charity, 261 Fearless, now uses running clubs to help women around the world.

Boston's legacy for runners

The Boston Marathon began in 1897 and is the oldest annual marathon in the world. By 2017, women made up almost half of its field.

Gibb and Switzer did not just change one race. Their runs helped show that women could train for and race long distances safely, which opened the door to women's marathons at championships and the Olympics, and to the millions of women who run marathons today.

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