I'll start by saying that I'm male and wasn't alive in 1966 or 1967. But I'd always thought Katherine Switzer was the first woman to run Boston.
Not true at all.
Switzer ran the race in 1967 with a number she got by putting down her name a KV Switzer so they wouldn't know she was a woman.
The weird thing is that year, Bobbi Gibb also ran the race that year but without a number and beat Switzer by nearly an hour. And year before, in 1966, Bobbi Gibb made the front page of papers all over the place as she also banditted the race without a number and was met at the finish line by the governor of Massachusetts. She was pretty quick 3:24.
Can someone tell me how Switzer got so many accolades?
It's kind of weird, right? Is it because she surreptitiously got a number she wasn't supposed to have? They both weren't supposed to be in the race. More fame goes to the woman who did it slower and a year later?
Gibb's had already shown the year before a woman could do it. And it's easier to run the race with a number than it is to run it with a sweatshirt on so you can hide the fact you are a woman.
I'm not criticizing Katherine. They both deserve praise. But how is it that I'm only barely aware of Gibbs.
Here's a competitor.com article on Gibbs:
and NY TImes: