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Joan Benoit

Joan Benoit

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Joan Benoit
Joan Benoit 2008.jpg
Personal information
Full nameJoan Benoit Samuelson
NationalityAmerican
Born(1957-05-16) May 16, 1957 (age 58)
Cape Elizabeth, Maine
ResidenceFreeport, Maine
Height5 ft 2 in (1.57 m)
Weight100 lb (45 kg)
Spouse(s)Scott Samuelson (m. September 1984)[1]
Sport
CountryUSA
SportTrack and field athletics
Event(s)Marathon
Achievements and titles
Olympic finals1984
Joan Benoit Samuelson (born May 16, 1957) 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.[2] Her time at the Boston Marathon was the fastest time by an American woman at that race for 28 years.


Early life and Boston Marathon victory[edit]

Born in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, Benoit took to long-distance running to help recover from a broken leg suffered while slaloming. At Bowdoin College she excelled in athletics. In 1977, after two years at Bowdoin, she accepted a running scholarship to North Carolina State, where she began concentrating solely on her running. She earned All-America honors at NC State in both 1977 and 1978, and in 1978 helped lead the Wolfpack to the Atlantic Coast Conference cross-country championship. After returning to Bowdoin to complete her degree, she entered the 1979 Boston Marathon as a relative unknown. She won the race, wearing a Boston Red Sox cap,[3] 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 surgery on her Achilles tendons two years earlier. Her Boston course record of 2:22:43, set in 1983, was not broken for another 11 years.[4]

Olympic success[edit]

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 Brown 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.[5]
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),[6] 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.

After retirement[edit]

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, going 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 Race 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.[7] 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.[citation needed] 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.[8] 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[edit]

  • All results regarding marathon, unless stated otherwise
YearCompetitionVenuePositionNotes
Representing the  United States
1978Bermuda MarathonBermuda2nd2:50:54
1979Boston MarathonBoston, United States1st2:35:15
1980Auckland MarathonAuckland, New Zealand1st2:31:23
1981Boston MarathonBoston, United States3rd2:30:17
1982Nike OTC MarathonEugene, United States1st2:26:12
1983Boston MarathonBoston, United States1st2:22:43
1984Summer OlympicsLos Angeles, United States1st2:24:52
1985Chicago MarathonChicago, United States1st2:21:21
1988New York City MarathonNew York City, United States3rd2:32:40
1991Boston MarathonBoston, United States4th2:26:54
1991New York City MarathonNew York City, United States6th2:33:49

References[edit]

  1. Jump up ^ http://sports.jrank.org/pages/418/Benoit-Samuelson-Joan-Born-Athlete.html
  2. Jump up ^ marathonguide.com
  3. Jump up ^ Cool Running :: Olympic Champion Joan Benoit Samuelson To Be Guest of Honor at Manchester Marathon
  4. Jump up ^ 2004 Boston Marathon Media Guide, published by Boston Athletic Association with John Hancock
  5. Jump up ^ 1984 Olympic Marathon
  6. Jump up ^ Bank of America Chicago Marathon: What You Need to Know Retrieved October 9, 2010
  7. Jump up ^ Joan Benoit Samuelson '79 Sets NYC Marathon Record, Campus News (Bowdoin)
  8. Jump up ^ "Samuelson sets 50-plus record at NYC Marathon". Associated Press (USA Today). November 1, 2002. Retrieved 2009-11-02. 
Records
Preceded by
Norway Grete Waitz		Women's marathon world record holder
April 18, 1983 – April 21, 1985		Succeeded by
Norway Ingrid Kristiansen
Preceded by
Netherlands Marja Wokke		Women's half marathon
world record holder
1981-01-18 – 1982-05-15		Succeeded by
Norway Grete Waitz
Preceded by
Norway Grete Waitz		Women's half marathon
world record holder
1983-09-18 – 1989-03-19		Succeeded by
Norway Ingrid Kristiansen
Awards and achievements
Preceded by
Trish Millines Dziko
Bruce Furniss
Virginia Gilder
Stacey Johnson
Gregory Kelser
Kellen Winslow		Silver Anniversary Awards (NCAA)
Class of 2005
Mark Johnson
Gary Lawrence
Paul McDonald
Greg Meredith
Joan Benoit Samuelson
Dave Stoldt		Succeeded by
Valerie Ackerman
Danny Ainge
Charles Davis
Terry Schroeder
Mike Singletary
Susan Wellington


Authority control
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