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Fifteen Years Ago, The TCS New York City Marathon Put Women First - RRWPublished by
FIFTEEN YEARS AGO, THE TCS NEW YORK CITY MARATHON PUT WOMEN FIRST NEW YORK (31-Oct) -- Nina Kuscsik. Kathrine Switzer. Grete Waitz. Tegla Loroupe. Paula Radcliffe. Mary Keitany. The TCS New York City Marathon has a long history of showcasing iconic women's distance runners. But for many years the female stars of the sport were getting lost in the crowd. Literally. Through 2001, New York featured a mixed mass start, sending off the elite women simultaneous with the top men and the hordes of rank and file runners. While that format frequently helped the leading women clock impressive times, it often came at the expense of visibility and even fair play. "What was happening is that we couldn't see the women in the TV show because inevitably fast guys who weren't going to win the race would be running all around them and it was easy for them to get lost," says Mary Wittenberg, who was executive vice president of New York Road Runners, the race organizers, at the time (she later served as president and CEO from 2005-2015 and is currently the global CEO of Richard Branson's Virgin Sport). More news |