PARIS (AP) — There was a time, not so long ago, when those responsible for the Olympics thought it was too dangerous for women to run a marathon.

On Sunday, in a break with tradition that sets an exclamation mark on how much has changed in the last 40 years, women, not men, will be given the honour of winning the Olympic athletics competition with the traditional 26.2-mile run.

Organizers of the Paris Olympics are using Sunday’s women’s marathon as another opportunity to mark the achievement of a long-sought Olympic record: the first Summer Games to feature equal numbers of men and women.

In a further nod to the historical significance of the moment, the marathon route follows the footsteps of the Women’s March on Versailles, a seminal moment during the French Revolution when women in a Paris marketplace organized a march to Versailles to voice their grievances about high bread prices to King Louis XVI.

Joan Benoit won the 1st Olympic Marathon

All this will be followed with interest Joan Benoit Samuelsonwho won the first Olympic marathon, which was not held until the 1984 Games in Los Angeles.

“After all these years, all these centuries, women are once again blazing trails that have changed the course of history, and in this case certainly for the better,” Samuelson said in an interview with the Associated Press.

For years before Samuelson’s history-making marathon, women were restricted to races of 800 meters or less. The 1,500-meter race was added in 1972. Arguments against women running longer distances included the idea that they could not handle the psychological stress of long races, and also that the strenuous running could cause infertility.

When Roberta Gibb was denied participation in the Boston Marathon in 1966, she hid behind a bush near the starting line and ran the course.

It was not until 1972 that women were officially allowed to compete in Boston, and it took another 12 years before the Olympic Games were added.

Carey Pinkowski, the Chicago Marathon’s executive race director, said when he began directing the race in 1990, about 5 percent of the participants were women. He said today the Chicago Marathon field is 50 percent female.

Joan Benoit ran on the highways of LA and won her first marathon gold

In 1984, the women’s marathon was held on the first Sunday of the Olympic track and field meet, not the last. The course started from Santa Monica and ran mostly on freeways before ending at the LA Coliseum.

Samuelson, then known as Joan Benoit, held the world record but was not a favorite as she had just undergone knee surgery. Her main rival was reigning world champion Grete Waitz. Benoit started fast and finished the race with a strong final sprint, running the course in 2 hours, 24 minutes and 52 seconds, making history as the first female Olympic marathon champion.

“Since then, I’ve lived by the motto ‘run your own race,'” Samuelson said. “You can’t run any other race in life but your own.”

Biles and Ledecky shone, now a marathon runner is in the spotlight

At an Olympic Games, Simone Biles, Sha’Carri Richardson And Katie Ledecky dominated the headlines, and where a toxic debate about gender in women’s boxing As much of the bad news has expressed, women will be in the spotlight at the closing athletics meet, the traditional centerpiece of the Games.

“This means that most people will be watching while they wait for the closing ceremony,” said the two-time Olympic runner in the 5,000-meter race Silver medalist Hellen Obirithe outstanding Kenyan who is considered the favorite and who has her own new audience as the subject of a documentary entitled “ The heart to race ”, which is produced by the sportswear manufacturer “On”. “It’s a great opportunity for millions of people to watch you. This is something you care about. I want to work extra hard to make those people happy.”

Obiri and the other 91 women taking part in the race will find that this journey through Parisian history is anything but a walk in the park. The course is a grueling run, peppered with twisting climbs reaching gradients of up to 13.5%, and is considered the most difficult the Olympic Games have ever seen. There were times Saturday, when the menwho struggled up the hills looked as if they were jogging.

“It’s simply the toughest course ever seen in a major championship and we believe that makes it the most interesting tactical race,” said Jon Ridgeon, the former sprinter and CEO of World Athletics. “I think it makes it more unpredictable for the athletes. It’s going to be a fascinating setting.”

For Sifan Hassan, the marathon is her third race at the Olympic Games

If only the decision-makers of the past generation – the leaders who thought women were too fragile to run long distances – could see what Sifan Hassan this week.

Less than 48 hours after winning her second distance bronze medal of the Paris Games with a bronze medal in the 10,000 meters, Hassan, the Ethiopian-born runner who competes for the Netherlands, will swap the track at the Stade de France for the brutal marathon course.

She also ran two 5,000-meter races, finishing third in the final. If Hassan can complete this hilly tour of French history, then make it past the Esplanade des Invalides and across the finish line, she will have run more than 62 kilometers in nine days – more than any other person, male or female, at the Paris Games.

If she wins a medal, she will repeat her feat from the Tokyo Games, when she won three medals in three distance events. Back then, she ran the 1,500m, not the marathon.

“Endurance on Sunday is no joke,” said Hassan. “Finishing the marathon is hell. It’s not easy.”

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AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games