Joan Benoit
Encyclopedia
Joan Benoit Samuelson is an American
marathon runner
, who won gold
at the 1984 Summer Olympics
in Los Angeles
, the year that the women's marathon was introduced. As a result she was the first ever women's Olympic
marathon champion. Benoit Samuelson still holds the fastest times for an American woman at the Chicago Marathon
and the Olympic Marathon. Her time at the Boston Marathon
was the fastest time by an American woman at that race for 28 years.
, of French
and Scandinavia
n ancestry, Benoit took to long-distance running to help recover from a broken leg suffered while slaloming
. At Bowdoin College
she excelled in athletics and then entered the 1979 Boston Marathon as a relative unknown. She won the race, wearing a Boston Red Sox
cap, in 2:35:15, knocking eight minutes off the competition record. She repeated that success with a victory again in 1983, that took more than two minutes off the world's best time, set by Grete Waitz
in the London Marathon
just the day before, despite having had surgery
on her Achilles tendon
s two years earlier. Her Boston course record of 2:22:43, set in 1983, was not broken for another 11 years.
by 30 seconds, winning in 2:31:04. Three months later, she competed in the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles and won the first Olympic Women's Marathon in 2:24:52, several hundred meters ahead of Grete Waitz
, Rosa Mota
, and Ingrid Kristiansen
, all considered legends in their own rights.
Benoit enjoyed success at non-marathon distances as well, winning the prestigious Falmouth Road Race
(7.1 miles) a total of six times (1976, 1978, 1981–1983, and 1985), breaking the course record on four of those occasions.
Although she won the 1985 Chicago
marathon, defeating Kristiansen and Mota in an American Record time of 2:21:21 (that would last as the AR for 18 years until broken by Deena Kastor
in 2003 in London), Benoit was hampered in the years after her Olympic victory by injuries and struggled to compete in major races. She received the 1985 James E. Sullivan Award
as the top amateur athlete in the United States.
on Cape Cod
, Massachusetts
. Benoit has also won that race several times, and ran it last in 2008, finishing as 28th woman and first in her age group. In 2003, at age 46, Benoit won the Maine half marathon, defeating a field dominated by runners two decades her junior, and she was faster than all but six men overall, finishing in 1:18. In 2006 she helped pace former cycling champion Lance Armstrong
as he competed in the New York City Marathon
. At the 2008 US Olympic
Team trials, at the age of 50, she finished in 2:49:08, setting a new US 50+ record and beating her personal goal of a mid-2:50s retirement marathon. When she ran the New York City Marathon
on November 1, 2009, she broke the 50+ division record with a final time of 2:49:09. On October 10, 2010, she ran 2:47:50 for 43rd place at the Chicago Marathon—the site of her American record a quarter century earlier—missing her goal of qualifying for an eighth Olympic Marathon Team Trials race by 1:50, but recording the fastest-ever performance by a woman over 52. Later that month she ran in the Athens Classic Marathon for fun and finished in 3:02, the slowest time of her career, but she was not fully healed from her Chicago performance. In April 2011, Joan competed in the Boston Marathon, completing the course in 2:51:29 and placing 1st in her age group.
Benoit resides in Freeport, Maine. She is featured on the Nike+ iPod system as one of the congratulatory voices, along with others including Lance Armstrong. Benoit and husband Scott Samuelson have two children, daughter Abby and son Anders.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
marathon runner
Running
Running is a means of terrestrial locomotion allowing humans and other animals to move rapidly on foot. It is simply defined in athletics terms as a gait in which at regular points during the running cycle both feet are off the ground...
, who won gold
Gold medal
A gold medal is typically the medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture...
at the 1984 Summer Olympics
1984 Summer Olympics
The 1984 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIII Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event held in Los Angeles, California, United States in 1984...
in Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
, the year that the women's marathon was introduced. As a result she was the first ever women's Olympic
Olympic Games
The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...
marathon champion. Benoit Samuelson still holds the fastest times for an American woman at the Chicago Marathon
Chicago Marathon
The Bank of America Chicago Marathon is a major marathon held yearly in Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. Alongside the Boston, New York, London and Berlin Marathons, it is one of the five World Marathon Majors. Thus, it is also an IAAF Gold Label race...
and the Olympic Marathon. Her time at the Boston Marathon
Boston Marathon
The Boston Marathon is an annual marathon hosted by the U.S. city of Boston, Massachusetts, on Patriots' Day, the third Monday of April. Begun in 1897 and inspired by the success of the first modern-day marathon competition in the 1896 Summer Olympics, the Boston Marathon is the world's oldest...
was the fastest time by an American woman at that race for 28 years.
Early life and Boston Marathon victory
Born in Cape Elizabeth, MaineCape Elizabeth, Maine
Cape Elizabeth is a town in Cumberland County, Maine, United States. The town is part of the Portland–South Portland–Biddeford, Maine metropolitan statistical area...
, of French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
n ancestry, Benoit took to long-distance running to help recover from a broken leg suffered while slaloming
Slalom skiing
Slalom is an alpine skiing discipline, involving skiing between poles spaced much closer together than in Giant Slalom, Super-G or Downhill, thereby causing quicker and shorter turns.- Origins :...
. At Bowdoin College
Bowdoin College
Bowdoin College , founded in 1794, is an elite private liberal arts college located in the coastal Maine town of Brunswick, Maine. As of 2011, U.S. News and World Report ranks Bowdoin 6th among liberal arts colleges in the United States. At times, it was ranked as high as 4th in the country. It is...
she excelled in athletics and then entered the 1979 Boston Marathon as a relative unknown. She won the race, wearing a Boston Red Sox
Boston Red Sox
The Boston Red Sox are a professional baseball team based in Boston, Massachusetts, and a member of Major League Baseball’s American League Eastern Division. Founded in as one of the American League's eight charter franchises, the Red Sox's home ballpark has been Fenway Park since . The "Red Sox"...
cap, in 2:35:15, knocking eight minutes off the competition record. She repeated that success with a victory again in 1983, that took more than two minutes off the world's best time, set by Grete Waitz
Grete Waitz
Grete Waitz was a Norwegian marathon runner and former world record holder. Waitz won nine New York City Marathons between 1978 and 1988, more than any other runner in history...
in the London Marathon
London Marathon
The London Marathon is one of the biggest running events in the world, and one of the five top world marathons that make up the World Marathon Majors competition, which has a $1 million prize purse. It has been held each spring in London since 1981. The race is currently sponsored by Virgin Money,...
just the day before, despite having had surgery
Surgery
Surgery is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, or to help improve bodily function or appearance.An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical...
on her Achilles tendon
Achilles tendon
The Achilles tendon , also known as the calcaneal tendon or the tendo calcaneus, is a tendon of the posterior leg. It serves to attach the plantaris, gastrocnemius and soleus muscles to the calcaneus bone.- Anatomy :The Achilles is the tendonous extension of 3 muscles in the lower leg:...
s two years earlier. Her Boston course record of 2:22:43, set in 1983, was not broken for another 11 years.
Olympic success
In March 1984, Benoit injured her knee severely during a 20 mile training run, forcing her to undergo arthroscopic knee surgery just 17 days before the United States Olympic Women's Marathon Trials were scheduled. However, she recovered from the surgery much quicker than expected, and showed up at the trials as the woman to beat. She beat runner-up Julie BrownJulie Brown (athlete)
Julie Ann Brown is a former American distance runner who won the World Cross Country Championship in 1975 and represented the United States in the 1984 Summer Olympics in the women's marathon placing 36....
by 30 seconds, winning in 2:31:04. Three months later, she competed in the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles and won the first Olympic Women's Marathon in 2:24:52, several hundred meters ahead of Grete Waitz
Grete Waitz
Grete Waitz was a Norwegian marathon runner and former world record holder. Waitz won nine New York City Marathons between 1978 and 1988, more than any other runner in history...
, Rosa Mota
Rosa Mota
Rosa Maria Correia dos Santos Mota, GCIH, GCM is a Portuguese former marathon runner, one of her country's foremost athletes. She is also considered to have been one of the best marathon runners of the 20th century....
, and Ingrid Kristiansen
Ingrid Kristiansen
Ingrid Kristiansen née Christensen , was one of the best female long distance runners in the second half of the 1980s. She finished in fourth place in the first women's Olympic marathon race, at the 1984 Summer Olympics.-Career:Kristiansen started her career quite unremarkably, running 2:30 - 2:40...
, all considered legends in their own rights.
Benoit enjoyed success at non-marathon distances as well, winning the prestigious Falmouth Road Race
Falmouth Road Race
The Falmouth Road Race is an annual 7-mile road race on Cape Cod from Woods Hole, a village in the town of Falmouth, Massachusetts, to Falmouth Heights.-History:...
(7.1 miles) a total of six times (1976, 1978, 1981–1983, and 1985), breaking the course record on four of those occasions.
Although she won the 1985 Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
marathon, defeating Kristiansen and Mota in an American Record time of 2:21:21 (that would last as the AR for 18 years until broken by Deena Kastor
Deena Kastor
Deena Michelle Kastor is an American long-distance runner. She holds American records in the marathon, half-marathon, and numerous road distances. She won the bronze medal in the women's marathon at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece...
in 2003 in London), Benoit was hampered in the years after her Olympic victory by injuries and struggled to compete in major races. She received the 1985 James E. Sullivan Award
James E. Sullivan Award
The James E. Sullivan Award, presented by the American Amateur Athletic Union , is awarded annually in April to "the outstanding amateur athlete in the United States". Often referred to as the Oscar of sports awards, it was first presented in 1930. The award is named for the AAU's founder and past...
as the top amateur athlete in the United States.
After retirement
Since her retirement from competitive running, she has written books including Running Tide and Running for Women, and has opened a running clinic. She is also a coach to women's cross-country and long-distance athletes, and is a motivational speaker and sports commentator. She founded the Beach to Beacon 10K Road Race, a 10 km (6.2 mi) race held in Cape Elizabeth, Maine each August that goes from Crescent Beach State Park to Fort Williams Park and Portland Head Light. The race attracts many of the world's top distance runners. Elite runners often run this race and then, the following weekend, run the Falmouth Road RaceFalmouth Road Race
The Falmouth Road Race is an annual 7-mile road race on Cape Cod from Woods Hole, a village in the town of Falmouth, Massachusetts, to Falmouth Heights.-History:...
on Cape Cod
Cape Cod
Cape Cod, often referred to locally as simply the Cape, is a cape in the easternmost portion of the state of Massachusetts, in the Northeastern United States...
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
. Benoit has also won that race several times, and ran it last in 2008, finishing as 28th woman and first in her age group. In 2003, at age 46, Benoit won the Maine half marathon, defeating a field dominated by runners two decades her junior, and she was faster than all but six men overall, finishing in 1:18. In 2006 she helped pace former cycling champion Lance Armstrong
Lance Armstrong
Lance Edward Armstrong is an American former professional road racing cyclist who won the Tour de France a record seven consecutive times, after having survived testicular cancer. He is also the founder and chairman of the Lance Armstrong Foundation for cancer research and support...
as he competed in the New York City Marathon
New York City Marathon
The New York City Marathon is a major annual marathon that courses through the five boroughs of New York City. It is one of the largest marathons in the world, with 45,103 finishers in 2010...
. At the 2008 US Olympic
Olympic Games
The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...
Team trials, at the age of 50, she finished in 2:49:08, setting a new US 50+ record and beating her personal goal of a mid-2:50s retirement marathon. When she ran the New York City Marathon
New York City Marathon
The New York City Marathon is a major annual marathon that courses through the five boroughs of New York City. It is one of the largest marathons in the world, with 45,103 finishers in 2010...
on November 1, 2009, she broke the 50+ division record with a final time of 2:49:09. On October 10, 2010, she ran 2:47:50 for 43rd place at the Chicago Marathon—the site of her American record a quarter century earlier—missing her goal of qualifying for an eighth Olympic Marathon Team Trials race by 1:50, but recording the fastest-ever performance by a woman over 52. Later that month she ran in the Athens Classic Marathon for fun and finished in 3:02, the slowest time of her career, but she was not fully healed from her Chicago performance. In April 2011, Joan competed in the Boston Marathon, completing the course in 2:51:29 and placing 1st in her age group.
Benoit resides in Freeport, Maine. She is featured on the Nike+ iPod system as one of the congratulatory voices, along with others including Lance Armstrong. Benoit and husband Scott Samuelson have two children, daughter Abby and son Anders.
Notable achievements
- All results regarding marathon, unless stated otherwise
Representing the 1978 Bermuda Marathon Bermuda BermudaBermuda is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. Located off the east coast of the United States, its nearest landmass is Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. It is about south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and northeast of Miami, Florida...2nd 2:50:54 1979 Boston Marathon Boston MarathonThe Boston Marathon is an annual marathon hosted by the U.S. city of Boston, Massachusetts, on Patriots' Day, the third Monday of April. Begun in 1897 and inspired by the success of the first modern-day marathon competition in the 1896 Summer Olympics, the Boston Marathon is the world's oldest...Boston, United States 1st 2:35:15 1980 Auckland Marathon Auckland MarathonThe Auckland Marathon and Half Marathon is an annual marathon running race held in Auckland, New Zealand. The event is held in October, or early November of each year, which is during the spring in New Zealand. The main feature of the event is the crossing of the Auckland Harbour Bridge, which...Auckland, New Zealand AucklandThe Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...1st 2:31:23 1981 Boston Marathon Boston MarathonThe Boston Marathon is an annual marathon hosted by the U.S. city of Boston, Massachusetts, on Patriots' Day, the third Monday of April. Begun in 1897 and inspired by the success of the first modern-day marathon competition in the 1896 Summer Olympics, the Boston Marathon is the world's oldest...Boston, United States 3rd 2:30:17 1982 Nike OTC Marathon Eugene, United States Eugene, OregonEugene is the second largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon and the seat of Lane County. It is located at the south end of the Willamette Valley, at the confluence of the McKenzie and Willamette rivers, about east of the Oregon Coast.As of the 2010 U.S...1st 2:26:12 1983 Boston Marathon Boston MarathonThe Boston Marathon is an annual marathon hosted by the U.S. city of Boston, Massachusetts, on Patriots' Day, the third Monday of April. Begun in 1897 and inspired by the success of the first modern-day marathon competition in the 1896 Summer Olympics, the Boston Marathon is the world's oldest...Boston, United States 1st 2:22:43 1984 Summer Olympics Los Angeles, United States Los Angeles, CaliforniaLos Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...1st 2:24:52 1985 Chicago Marathon Chicago MarathonThe Bank of America Chicago Marathon is a major marathon held yearly in Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. Alongside the Boston, New York, London and Berlin Marathons, it is one of the five World Marathon Majors. Thus, it is also an IAAF Gold Label race...Chicago ChicagoChicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, United StatesUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...1st 2:21:21 1988 New York City Marathon New York City MarathonThe New York City Marathon is a major annual marathon that courses through the five boroughs of New York City. It is one of the largest marathons in the world, with 45,103 finishers in 2010...New York City, United States 3rd 2:32:40 1991 Boston Marathon Boston MarathonThe Boston Marathon is an annual marathon hosted by the U.S. city of Boston, Massachusetts, on Patriots' Day, the third Monday of April. Begun in 1897 and inspired by the success of the first modern-day marathon competition in the 1896 Summer Olympics, the Boston Marathon is the world's oldest...Boston, United States 4th 2:26:54 1991 New York City Marathon New York City MarathonThe New York City Marathon is a major annual marathon that courses through the five boroughs of New York City. It is one of the largest marathons in the world, with 45,103 finishers in 2010...New York City, United States 6th 2:33:49