Rosie Ruiz
Rosie Ruiz Vivas (born 1953, Havana, Cuba) is a Cuban American runner who on April 21, 1980 came in as the first place female competitor in the 84th Boston Marathon with a record time of 2:31:56. However, race officials determined that she had not completed the entire 26.2-mile course, but had registered for the race and later jumped in from the crowd and sprinted to the finish.
There was suspicion from the beginning: no one had seen her running earlier in the race, she did not appear in videotape footage, and some members of the crowd reported witnessing her run into the race in the last mile. Soon, race officials learned that Ruiz had possibly cheated in the New York City Marathon six months earlier in order to qualify for the Boston Marathon. Freelance photographer Susan Morrow reported seeing her on the subway during the New York race, apparently having sprained her ankle. Morrow rode with her to the finish and escorted her to the medical treatment area. She lost touch with Ruiz after that, but came forward when the news of Ruiz' dubious Boston win broke. New York Marathon officials speculated that volunteers at the first aid area may have mistakenly marked her down as a finisher, thus qualifying her for the Boston Marathon.
Eventually, race officials decided to strip Ruiz of her title and named Jacqueline Gareau of Montreal, Canada the women's winner, with a time of 2:34:28. New York Marathon director Fred Lebow had rescinded Ruiz' 1979 finish earlier that week, determining that Ruiz had not completed her first marathon, either. To this day, Ruiz has not officially finished a sanctioned marathon.
Theories Behind the Hoax
In 2006, the Game Show Network aired a documentary on the marathon scandal. In it, marathon officials and other experts offered up their opinions on what actually happened. The most widely held theory is that Ruiz did not mean to win the race, merely to finish with a respectable time. It is believed that after Ruiz was mistakenly awarded a qualifying finish time in the 1979 New York Marathon, she was unable to admit the mistake to her boss, who was so excited by Ruiz' qualifying time that he offered to pay her expenses to Boston. On the day of the 1980 Boston Marathon, Ruiz is believed to have walked from her hotel to Kenmore Square, one mile from the finish line. She is thought to have jumped in too early, not realizing she was ahead of all the female runners.
Her inability to recall prominent landmarks along the race course and her unfamiliarity with common marathoning terms (such as intervals and splits) not only gave rise to doubts to the veracity of her victory, but also revealed that she likely had not planned to steal the first position. The thinking was that a person who planned to impersonate the victor would have studied these things and been ready to answer such common questions. Ruiz' lack of "preparation", coupled with the revelations of her situation in New York, have led many to the conclusion that she merely jumped in the race sooner than she intended.
After the race, there were those who accused race organizer Will Cloney of prolonging his investigation in a cynical attempt to draw attention to the marathon. Cloney brushed this aside by saying, "I'm not that smart," and few people gave this idea any credence.
Another theory is that Ruiz actually did run the entire course in record time, undetected by anyone until the finish. There is no "hard evidence" of cheating (e.g. photos of Ruiz jumping into the race), despite overwhelming circumstantial evidence against her. As of 2006, she continues to deny any cheating, insists she ran the entire distance in both races, and refuses to return her first place medal.
Life after the race
Ruiz quickly faded from the public eye after she was stripped of her title. Shortly after the race, she was fired from her job at New York-based Metal Traders, Inc. (the yellow Adidas shirt she wore during the race was a gift from her boss, emblazoned with the company's initials across the chest and the company name on the back).
In 1982, Ruiz was arrested and briefly jailed for stealing $60,000 in cash and checks from a Manhattan real estate firm where she was employed. She spent a week in jail and was given five years' probation. Nineteen months later, after moving home to Florida, she was arrested for arranging to sell two kilos of cocaine to undercover agents in Miami. Ruiz spent 23 days in jail and received two years probation.
She was married in 1984. The marriage ended two years later, but Ruiz kept her husband's surname of Vivas, a name she still uses. She has lived in south Florida for years and currently resides in West Palm Beach. Several of her friends and acquaintances, apprised of her history, report having had no knowledge of her connection with the marathon scandal, despite having known her for years, according to the GSN documentary.
In 1998, The Palm Beach Post reported that Ruiz was planning to run in the 104th Boston Marathon in 2000. Although there are no records of Ruiz attempting to enter the marathon that year, the rules of the Boston Athletic Association forbid a disqualified runner from racing again; Ruiz is banned for life from the Boston Marathon. In an interview for the 2006 GSN documentary, Ruiz said that she is no longer running due to an unspecified injury. Ruiz had the opportunity to run the following year's 1981 race and did not compete.
Ruiz has also said that she has been approached several times by parties offering her generous sums of money to write a book admitting her defeat and explaining exactly what she did on the day of the 1980 marathon. She has refused all purported offers, according to the documentary, and is planning to revert to the name Ruiz.
Aftermath
Jacqueline Gareau was awarded a winner's medal at a press conference over a week after the marathon. Her medal was bigger than the one that Ruiz had originally received, equal in size to the larger men's medal. Since the 1980 race, women and men have been awarded medals equal in size. In 2005, Gareau served as Grand Marshal of the Boston Marathon, and in a special ceremony was allowed to recreate her finish and break the tape.
The 1980 male winner was Bill Rodgers, who achieved his historic fourth consecutive win that year, but the news of his victory was overshadowed by the Ruiz scandal. Many have said that Rodgers and Gareau were cheated out of their glory, but both have maintained a graceful attitude in the face of the controversy, particularly Gareau, who has never publicly expressed anger over the situation.
Because of the controversy surrounding her fraudulent victory, Ruiz remains one of the most well-known participants in the Boston Marathon, albeit for dubious reasons.
As a result of the scandal, the Boston Marathon and several other races instituted a number of safeguards against cheating that are still used today. These include extensive video surveillance and the ChampionChip RFID system that monitors electronically when runners arrive at various checkpoints on the course. These techniques have been used to identify other would-be cheaters, notably "Jean's Marines," a group of charity runners who were caught cutting the course during the 2005 Marine Corps Marathon.
Parody
Ruiz was parodied on the Canadian sketch comedy television series SCTV by Andrea Martin playing a character named Rosie Mendoza. Her story was parodied in an episode of "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Aire"
References
- "The scam: It's been 25 years since Rosie Ruiz failed to fool the world". Boston Herald. April 15, 2005.
{{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|1=(help) - Anything to Win, Game Show Network series, episode "Rosie Ruiz and the Boston Marathon Scandal" (original airdate January 10, 2006)