CAPE ELIZABETH, Maine — A Cape Elizabeth native celebrated her barrier-breaking gold medal performance by running in the TD Beach to Beacon 10K Road Race on Saturday.
Joan Benoit Samuelson donned bib number 40 in Saturday's race to acknowledge the 40th anniversary since she won gold in the first-ever Olympic women's marathon in 1984 in Los Angeles. It was a monumental moment for women in sports, because women had been deemed "unfit for endurance races," and were banned from distances longer than 200 meters until 1960.
"I really thought, who was going to come out and watch a bunch of woman runners run 26.2 miles when there were a lot of pundits who thought women couldn't compete over that distance," Samuelson said in an interview with NEWS CENTER Maine on Aug. 1, just days before the 40-year mark of her win.
Samuelson, née Benoit, grew up in Cape Elizabeth and ran track at the high school. She said she dreamed of becoming an Olympic ski racer, but a broken leg led to rehabilitation through running, which she did at Fort Williams Park in town. She won the state championship in the high school mile during her senior year and went on to run at Bowdoin College.
"I had never seen a Boston Marathon before I ran in 1979," according to a quote from Joan on the TD Beach to Beacon 10K website. Samuelson won the Boston Marathon that year, and then again in 1983, setting a world record of 2:22:43, which she held until the year 1994, according to the Boston Athletic Association.
Just 17 days before the Olympic trials in Olympia, Washington, she underwent arthroscopic knee surgery. Somehow, she still made Team USA's first women's marathon squad.
"It was actually a blessing in disguise to have the knee issue because I was up, up, up, peaking, peaking, peaking. And I think I would have gone over that fine line had I not had that interruption," Samuelson said. "I'll rest when I'm dead. I have a hard time sitting still."
Less than three months later, "Joanie" was lining up to run in the first-ever women's Olympic marathon in Los Angeles. Despite women being allowed to race, she faced a lot of doubters.
Her friend, training partner, and journalist, Toni Reavis, remembers the skepticism about Joan specifically. Norway's Grete Weitz was the favorite, coming into the Olympic marathon unbeaten. She was a five-time New York City Marathon champion, and the first woman to run the distance in less than two hours and 30 minutes.
"We knew that this was going to be a special event. We knew that the cadre of athletes at that particular time were very special women," Reavis said.
"It's always easier going into a competition as the underdog. You have nothing to prove except to yourself," Samuelson said.
Samuelson also remembered how Life Magazine was writing an article about her being an American going to run the first women's Olympic marathon—on U.S. soil, no less. But when she underwent her surgery, she said Life shifted focus to a more generic piece about women running the Olympic marathon.
"It had a little inset of me sipping from a cup of tea in a nightgown, in a rocking chair, like, 'Poor little Joan.' You know, 'Too bad she's not going to be able to run.' And I had something to prove. That, and Nike had put a bigger-than-life-sized mural on one of the buildings in Watts. When I had the knee issues, I thought, if a company is going to put that kind of faith in me, I can't disappoint them."
Reavis remembers hearing other men in Los Angeles discount the Boston Marathon course, and criticize Joan's Boston performance in 1983, saying she had kept pace with Kevin Ryan, a New Zealand runner hired to run the '83 Boston Marathon to do a story for a running publication.
"So they basically slighted the Boston Marathon route and then they slighted Joan by thinking she had been paced by a man and neither one of those conditions were actually true," Reavis said.
Reavis defended her.
"We know this woman. And if you let her go, you'll never see our front side again," Reavis said. "The more you say, 'You can't do it,' you just fire her up and at your own peril."
And that's what happened.
PHOTOS: Joan Benoit Samuelson's barrier-breaking 1984 Olympic women's marathon gold medal performance
At just three miles into the 26.2-mile race, Joan made the controversial decision to break from the pack. She felt she wasn't running efficiently. She gained a nearly two-minute lead that she never relinquished.
Samuelson won gold with a time of 2:24:52, a record she held until the year 2000.
"I was shocked when I literally heard the crowd get to their feet when I entered the darkness of the tunnel," Samuelson said. "On a wing and a prayer, I did it. I can't explain how. I just did it."
Reavis said he has only asked for one autograph in his life: Joan's. He asked her to sign his Olympic ticket from LA.
"Everyone knew how important this was because women had to fight, fight, fight to show that they could not only do this but there was also widespread enough participation that they would allow them to do this," Reavis said. "She was just not going to be beat that day."
"When Joan Benoit, just one month before she was a Samuelson, won that Olympic gold medal and stood atop that step, there was a pride in everyone from Cape Elizabeth, Maine, New England, America, and the running world," Reavis added.
On Saturday, Samuelson did something she rarely does: she ran the TD Beach to Beacon 10K—the race she founded. She finished at 45:38 and placed first in her age group.
The annual Cape Elizabeth race now draws elite runners from all over the world, including Kenya and Ethiopia, but also from Maine. Olympian Rachel Smith of Sanford and Emily Durgin of Standish finished sixth and fifth, respectively on Saturday.
"They keep me in the sport. They're using their abilities and their successes and their inspiration. They keep me going. I have no business to be running still, and yet I've been blessed. And I can still put one foot in front of the other. I don't take any mile for granted anymore," Samuelson said.