The Rosie Ruiz Marathon Scandal (GT Mini)
Ghost Town: Strange History, True Crime, & the Paranormal
Ghost Town
3.7 • 938 Ratings
🗓️ 14 April 2023
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A marathon scandal makes headlines in 1980.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Running on empty. I'm Rebecca Leib. I'm Jason Horton and this is Ghost Town. |
| 0:19.5 | I will be very sad for them that they're disqualifying me because when I run in the next race and they see |
| 0:24.6 | what I can really do they're going to be very upset about it. On April 21, 1980, Rosie Ruiz won |
| 0:34.1 | the Boston Marathon's female category at two hours, 31 minutes and 56 seconds. It was the fastest |
| 0:40.5 | female time in Boston Marathon history and the third fastest female time in any marathon. The |
| 0:46.3 | only problem? Rosie Ruiz didn't actually run the Boston Marathon. Ruiz an administrative assistant |
| 0:51.4 | living in New York City, qualified for the 84th Boston Marathon with her time of two hours, |
| 0:57.3 | 56 minutes and 29 seconds at the 1979 New York City Marathon placing 11th for women overall. |
| 1:04.2 | Wow, impressive. It is truly. She was a relative unknown in the running world and her huge win |
| 1:11.0 | made those in the community suspicious. One glaring reason was the 25-minute improvement |
| 1:17.1 | over her New York City marathon time, which was already somewhat record breaking for granted, |
| 1:22.8 | the internet did not exist, but communities were still communities, records were still kept, |
| 1:29.5 | and this person who really had no history in running marathon, I've been running marathons for |
| 1:35.1 | years and I've worked myself to a point where I could achieve this. It's just like she just did |
| 1:39.8 | the New York City and then the Boston. And qualified for Boston via the New York City one, |
| 1:44.6 | you need to kind of a gateway in there. Yeah, Boston Marathon is one of the most elite |
| 1:50.4 | marathons in the United States, definitely if not the world, and also has been known. |
| 1:55.6 | In my opinion, it's like being very elitist and very gatekeepery in terms of who is able to |
| 2:00.6 | participate. So this would be a giant thing. According to race photos, Ruiz didn't appear in any |
| 2:05.7 | of them until the very end when she's crossing the finish line. Barely sweating, her hair was |
| 2:10.7 | perfectly styled and her face was hardly flushed over 26 miles. I used to run track and cross |
| 2:18.8 | country and I have marathon. Once you did have marathon, I do. I'm very good and very fast, |
... |
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