More than 6,500 runners took to the roads of Cape Elizabeth, Maine on August 3rd for the TD Beach to Beacon 10k Road Race. It may have been the 26th annual running of the event, but this year also marks the 40th anniversary since the first women’s marathon at the Olympics. On August 5th, 1984, the Beach to Beacon race founder and Cape Elizabeth native, Joan Benoit Samuelson, made history by winning gold in an event that had been barred from women athletes since the first modern Olympic Games in 1896.
We talked with athletes in this year’s Beach to Beacon professional field, Edna Kiplagat, Emily Durgin, Rachel Smith, and Jenny Simpson, about Joanie’s contributions to gender equity in sport, and with Joanie herself about her legacy as a pioneer in women’s distance running.
Paving the Way for a New Future
Prior to pioneers like Joanie, competing in distance running was an uphill battle for women. “I was in high school in 1972, and [when] I was just starting out in high school, Title IX legislation hadn't passed,” Joanie says. Despite having limited opportunities, Joanie became one of 50 women to line up for the 1984 Olympic marathon race.
Not only did she compete, but Joanie went on and won the race in a bold, brave, and gutsy fashion that had never really been seen before. “The fact that she took the lead over at two miles in is like, oh man, it's so beautiful. It's so inspirational,” says Smith, a Tokyo Olympian. “Joanie is an incredible inspiration to every generation that's come after her. She really paved the way in women's running, and what she did 40 years ago in LA, getting that gold medal, I think really showed us that there's no limits.”
“It just says a lot about the progress that women's running has made, and to have people tell me I was part of that is very meaningful.”
Even after setting what is still the 8th fastest marathon time in American history at the 1985 Chicago Marathon, it’s not just Joanie’s finishing times that are etched in history. Simpson, a world champion and Olympic bronze medalist, is touched by Joanie’s sustained commitment to the sport. “She's paved the way by being the first and being out front, but then also in her just enduring impact…she's just stayed really embedded in the sport,” Simpson says.
Sparking a Women’s Running Revolution
“Maybe an American will go on to win gold in the future, but they'll never be the first because that was Joanie,” says Emily Durgin, a two-time national champion and 9th at this year’s U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials. While she doesn’t take all of the credit she deserves for the positive change that has been made, she acknowledges that “over all those years – 50-plus years – it's changed a lot.”
In the first year that a women’s division was offered at the Boston Marathon (1972), eight women crossed the finish line. This year, that number was nearly 11,000. Edna Kiplagat was one of those women. The two-time Boston Marathon winner and two-time marathon world champion finished second at Saturday’s 10k in Cape Elizabeth. Her idol? Joanie. “She has been an inspiration and motivation to so many young women, and that's why we're here…I'm motivated by everything that she does,” Kiplagat says.
At age 67, Joanie was among those who ran this year’s Beach to Beacon 10k, but she had more women by her side compared to the final 21 miles in LA. “I'm so proud of women runners' success these days because there are a lot of women ahead of me . . . So it just says a lot about the progress that women's running has made, and to have people tell me I was part of that is very meaningful. I'm humbled and blessed at the same time,” Joanie says.
“Maybe an American will go on to win gold in the future, but they'll never be the first because that was Joanie.”
“The Work Isn’t Done”
Simpson responded with four words when we asked for her message to young girls in the running world: “The work isn’t done.” Now, the professional women of the Beach to Beacon are among the next group of women athletes who are setting an example and holding the baton in the journey towards gender equality in sport. There is much to celebrate 40 years after Joanie’s famous race, but women athletes must keep their eyes ahead. “When we think that, ‘Oh, we've come so far,’ there's always still work to do,” Simpson says.
To Smith, who had her daughter just 15 months ago, there is still progress to be made in supporting women athletes who want to take a break from sport to start a family. She emphasizes that the running world needs to “[support] that part of the journey and not [see] it as career-ending or career-diminishing, but as like this beautiful part, and that women and moms can come back stronger than ever in their career.”
An Opportune Victory
“When you're given an opportunity, you should just focus on it and devote yourself to that opportunity. And then, with success given opportunity, not forget where your roots began, and just pay-it-forward and give it back,” Joanie says. And that’s exactly what she has done.
Whether it was setting a precedent for the capabilities of women athletes, or founding the Beach to Beacon 10k in her hometown, Joanie has given back to a sport and community that has given so much to her. The journey towards gender equality in sport has felt like a marathon, but Joanie’s triumph inspires women athletes to stay in the race.
