Athletes - Joan Benoit

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	Athletes - Joan Benoit

Joan Benoit Samuelson (born May 16, 1957) is an American marathon runner who won gold at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. As a result she was the first ever women's Olympic marathon champion.

Career

Born in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, USA, Benoit took to long-distance running to help recover from a broken leg suffered while skiing. At Bowdoin College she excelled in athletics and then entered the 1979 Boston Marathon as a relative unknown. She won the race, while wearing a Red Sox cap, and set a new record knocking some 10 minutes off the record finishing in 2:35. She repeated that success with a record setting victory again in 1983 taking another 5 minutes off the world's best time despite having surgery two years earlier on her Achilles tendons. Her time in 1983 would have won any of the last three Boston Marathons.

At the 1984 Summer Olympics she won the marathon in a time of 2: 24: 52, more than a minute ahead of her rivals. The athletes behind her were Grete Waitz, Rosa Mota and Ingrid Kristiansen - all marathon legends in their own right.

Although she won the 1985 Chicago marathon, 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

Since retirement from competitive running, she has written books including Running Tide and Running for Women, and has opened a running clinic. Aside from this she is a coach to women's cross-country and long-distance athletes, and is a motivational speaker and sports commentator. She also founded the Beach to Beacon Road Race, a 10-kilometer (6.21 mile) race held in Cape Elizabeth, Maine each August that goes from Crescent Beach State Park to Ft. 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. Joan has also won that race several times and ran it last in 2005. Joan resides in Freeport, Maine.

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