Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Amazing Marathon Moments

Just a few of my favorites here, including other nice marathon moments besides the finishes.

Deena Kastor Takes the Bronze in Athens
Watch for the hard pass, late in the race, at the 1:45 mark on the video. It makes her emotional finish all the more enjoyable.

Duel In The Sun or Dick Beardsley and Alberto Salazar in their famous battle for victory at the 1982 Boston Marathon. I love the pure guts on display here. The motorcycle cops and the stray horse make me cringe, though.

Gabrielle Andersen-Scheiss and her famous finish at the 1984 Olympics, the first contested Women's Olympic marathon. Many were shocked to see her coming in looking like this and those who fought for the event to take place feared this could be used as an argument against women running the marathon. She waved off officials because at the time it meant that she would be disqualified from the event, and went on to finish in a still amazing 2:48:45. It's important to note that she was feeling better and fully recovered later that day, and went on to a very successful Masters running career.

And the winner from that race in 1984....Joan Benoit Samuelson. And again.... twenty four years later! Under 2:50 at age 50. Simply remarkable.

5 comments:

DogPound said...

I was in Boston during the trails and got to see Dena win and Joan finish. Totally amazing! She passed like 16 people in the last mile!
Oh and this is one of my all time faves.
Julie Moss, 1982 Ironman

TiredMamaRunning said...

Oh, I remember that now! I was a Wide World of Sports junkie when I was a kid. Awesome-if you can't run, you crawl or whatever else gets you across that finish. Thanks for posting that!

Unknown said...

Thanks for posting these Kazz! I just finished reading Kathrine Switzer's "Marathon Woman" and of course had to look up Gabrielle's finish. I hadn't seen Joan's though!

Ron said...

Great choices...I never realized that GA Sleisse finished in such a fine time. I lived in LA at the time and saw the men's in person, also an awesome race with a 37 year-old winner.

Oz Runner said...

cool videos, thanks for sharing...I am just amazed when I watch these world class runners...very inspirational..