Rosie Ruiz, Boston 1980: The Winner Who Only Ran the Last Mile

01A win out of nowhere

Rosie Ruiz, who lives in New York, wins the 84th Boston Marathon in 2:31:56, a women's course record. For a near-beginner, that is fast. Very fast. Her only other marathon, New York in October 1979, she had finished in 2:56:29. Nearly 25 minutes better in six months.

02The runner who didn't sweat

Bill Rodgers, the men's winner, ends up next to her in front of the microphones. “She wasn't sweating enough. She had on a heavy shirt. She didn't know about running,” he would say. Jacqueline Gareau, the Canadian, comes in alone, with no finish tape to break. “I knew I was first,” she says. She too notices Ruiz's cotton shirt, “barely wet.”

The questions don't help. Asked about her training, Ruiz says she isn't really sure what intervals are. Her split times, she doesn't know. Whole stretches of the course, she doesn't remember.

03The photos that are missing

The organizers dig in. The marshals posted along the course didn't log her, and the other women don't remember her. More than 10,000 photos are examined: they show Gareau leading the women, and Ruiz nowhere until the very end. Two Harvard students say they saw her burst out of the crowd in the last mile: near Kenmore Square, about a mile from the finish, according to the Associated Press; half a mile out, according to other accounts. How did she get there? It was never established.

04What about the subway?

Which brings us back to New York. A photographer says she talked with her on the subway, in the middle of the 1979 marathon. The investigation concludes she covered part of the course underground, to get the time that opened the door to Boston. Her New York time is annulled.

She doesn't budge. The day before the decision, the race director, Will Cloney, spends nearly an hour with her. Then he declares: “I am convinced that Rosie believes she ran the whole race”, the Christian Science Monitor reports. She swears she won fair and square and never admits otherwise.

05Eight days later

On April 29, 1980, eight days after the finish, the Boston Athletic Association announces that Ruiz is disqualified. The real winner is Jacqueline Gareau, in 2:34:28. Ruiz never gives back her medal, according to the Associated Press: Gareau gets another one. The Canadian receives her laurel wreath later, in Boston, at a ceremony in front of the Prudential Center, the Boston Globe reports. A week after the race, by her recollection; the following month, according to the Associated Press.

The two women cross paths again later, at a 10K in Miami. Ruiz comes over to introduce herself. “Why did you do that?” Gareau asks. Ruiz says she won. “It's her life,” the Canadian would say. Rosie Ruiz died in Florida in July 2019, aged 66. On the 1980 roll of honor, one name stands: Jacqueline Gareau.