Bobbi Gibb

Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Gibb grew up in the suburbs of Boston during the 1940s and 1950s.

She studied at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and Tufts University School of Special Studies.

Her father was a professor of chemistry at Tufts.

She was already running long distances.

Her running included daily commuting of the eight miles to school.

She ran in white leather Red Cross nurses' shoes because there were no running shoes available for women at the time.

Roberta Louise Gibb (born November 2, 1942) is an American former runner who was the first woman to have run the entire Boston Marathon (1966).

She is recognized by the Boston Athletic Association as the pre-sanctioned era women's winner in 1966, 1967, and 1968.

At the Boston Marathon, the pre-sanctioned era comprised the years from 1966 through 1971, when women, who under AAU rules could not compete in the Men's Division, ran and finished the race.

Gibb's run in 1966 challenged prevalent prejudices and misconceptions about women's athletic capabilities.

Before 1966, the longest Amateur Athletic Union (AAU)-sanctioned race for women was one and a half miles.

On writing for an application in February 1966, she received a letter from the race director, Will Cloney, informing her that women were not physiologically capable of running marathon distances and that under the rules that governed amateur sports set out by the AAU, women were not allowed to run more than a mile and a half competitively.

She realized that it was more important than ever to run and that her run would have a social significance far beyond just her own personal challenge.

After three nights and four days on a bus from San Diego, California, Gibb arrived the day before the race at her parents' house in Winchester, Massachusetts.

On the morning of Patriots' Day, April 19, 1966, her mother dropped her off at the start in Hopkinton.

Wearing her brother's Bermuda shorts and a blue hooded sweatshirt over a black, tanked-top swim suit, she hid in the bushes near the starting pen.

After the starting gun fired, she waited until about half the pack had started and then jumped into the race.

The men soon realized that she was a woman.

Encouraged by their friendliness and support, she removed her sweatshirt.

To her delight and relief, the crowds cheered to see a woman running.

The press began to report on her progress towards Boston.

Diana Chapman Walsh, later President of Wellesley College, recalled the day years later:

"That was my senior year at Wellesley. As I had done every spring since I arrived on campus, I went out to cheer the runners. But there was something different about that Marathon Day—like a spark down a wire, the word spread to all of us lining the route that a woman was running the course. For a while, the 'screech tunnel' fell silent. We scanned face after face in breathless anticipation until just ahead of her, through the excited crowd, a ripple of recognition shot through the lines and we cheered as we never had before. We let out a roar that day, sensing that this woman had done more than just break the gender barrier in a famous race…"

By the time Gibb reached the finish line in Boston, the Governor of Massachusetts, John Volpe, was there to shake her hand.

She finished in three hours, twenty-one minutes and forty seconds, ahead of two-thirds of the runners.

The following morning her feat was front-page news in the Record American, where the headline read: "Hub Bride First Gal to Run Marathon."

In another Record American article entitled "Roberta Gets Official Support: Females May Run Marathon", Jack Kendall wrote:

"Roberta the runner may revolutionize Boston's fabled BAA marathon — and for that matter every other long distance run staged in the country. Even as the bunions acquired from Tuesday's grueling 26 mile, 385 yard race were subsiding, the furor over a woman's intrusion into what had been an all-male domain was mounting. ... But a spokesman from the New England Amateur Athletic Union has already decided it may be a woman's world after all. WOULD CHANGE RULES He plans personally to contact the organization's national headquarters and seek consideration for suspension of the NAAU rules so that a female who wishes to compete in the marathon can do so. In his opinion the only way the rule could be circumvented would be through suspension of the rules."

In an article from the Boston Traveler dated April 20, 1966, the day following the marathon, Cloney is quoted questioning the authenticity of Gibb even participating in the race.

"Mrs Bingay (Gibb) did not run in yesterday's marathon. There is no such thing as a marathon for a woman. She may have run in a road race, but she did not race in the marathon. I have no idea of this woman running. She was not at any of our checkpoints and none of our checkers saw her. For all I know she could have jumped in at Kenmore Square."

Told of this Mrs. Bingay (Gibb) said "If you don't believe me, ask the runners who saw me. Or the spectators who were cheering me. I don't want to get into a public debate with Mr. Cloney about it. If he doesn't believe me, that's his business".

The May 2, 1966, issue of Sports Illustrated featured an article written by Gwilym S. Brown entitled “A Game Girl In A Man's Game”:

In 1967, she finished nearly an hour ahead of Kathrine Switzer.

In 1968 Gibb finished first among five women that ran the marathon.

It was not until late 1971, pursuant to a petition to the Amateur Athletic Union by Nina Kuscsik, that the AAU changed its rules and began to sanction women's division marathons.

Kuscsik won the initial AAU-sanctioned women's division race at Boston in 1972.

Until 1972, when the first women's division marathon opened, the Boston Marathon was an AAU men's division race.

Under the AAU rules, women are not qualified to run in men's division races.

Gibb trained for two years to run the Boston Marathon, covering as much as 40 miles in one day.

In 1996 the B.A.A. retroactively recognized as champions the women who finished first in the Pioneer Women's Division Marathon for the years 1966–1971.