Joan Benoit-Samuelson was the best known woman distance runner in the world in the 1980s and few could argue that she was the most successful athlete of any sport in Maine during the 20th century. The Cape Elizabeth native reached heights in distance running in the late 1970s and ‘80s that are unmatched in women’s distance running. Her major achievements are threefold: She won the first women’s Olympic marathon ever held, in 1984 in Los Angeles; she is a two-time winner of the Boston Marathon, where she set a world record of 2:22:43 in 1983; and, two years later, she was honored with the prestigious Sullivan Award as the greatest woman athlete in the United States.

Born May 16, 1957, Samuelson’s venture into sports began in junior high when she took up track in a summer recreation league. In high school she played J.V. basketball at Cape Elizabeth for three years as well as four years of varsity field hockey. At Bowdoin College she played field hockey through her sophomore year. At the time, Bowdoin had no track or cross country programs for women.

Skiing cross country and alpine were two other sports she did growing up, and she eventually made them lifetime sports. “I was never very serious about cross country skiing,” Samuelson wrote in the summer of 1994. “It has always been a recreational sport for me with the exception of a couple of citizen races in college and one race at Sugarloaf in the mid-‘80s. I did a lot of cross country skiing during the two winters preceding the Olympics when I did very little if any downhill skiing for fear I might get hurt. I have done more downhill skiing with the family in recent years and less cross country.”

She ran her first road race in 1974 when she was 16, and won. It was the 5-K event of the Maine Masters-sponsored road race season-opener, the Roland Dyer Memorial Race in March. Her time was recorded as 21:00. She was the only woman in the race, as Robin Emery ran the longer 10-K event that day. Benoit entered the sport at a time when women were just beginning to be accepted as serious competitors in distance running events. Pioneers like Emery and Diane Fournier had helped pave the way in this evolution, working their way into an all-male sport while overcoming frustration and social barriers. Within a few short years Benoit would set the record straight.

In 1977, after two years at Bowdoin, she accepted a running scholarship to North Carolina State, where she began concentrating solely on her running. After three semesters there she returned to Bowdoin to finish her degree. The school by now had a women’s track and cross country program in place.

Samuelson, who was 5-foot-3 and weighed 108 pounds, ran her first marathon in Bermuda in January, 1979. She was there to run the 10-K, but the marathon was held the day before so she ran in it as a training run, although she was officially entered. She finished in 2:54.

Only three months after her Bermuda, she ran for the first time in the Boston Marathon. She was 21 and still a student at Bowdoin College where that spring she had been named to All America at 3,000 and 10,000 meters. There were many people in Maine who believed that Benoit was a serious contender at Boston. One was Portland Press Herald writer Vern Putney.
" No newspaperman from the paper had ever been permitted to cover the Boston Marathon,” said Putney. His superiors at the Press Herald were against the idea. But Putney persisted and for good reason. “Joanie was on the rise,” he said. “I told company executives that Joanie had an excellent chance to win the BAA, and that I should be there to cover it.” Finally, the management gave in. Putney headed south.

“At Hopkinton, I talked with a recent California marathon winner. The best luck I can wish you is that you keep pace with Joanie, because she’s going to win it,” Putney remembers saying to her.

“It was my biggest thrill in sports coverage. The now-veteran reporter, perched on a catwalk above the Boston Marathon finish line with The Flag brushing his head, espied a gutty little lass from Cape Elizabeth pounding home in an American record of 2:35:15. To heck with formality and objectivity. It was time for a wild cheer, for hearth-thumping exultation. Joan Benoit, a dynamic bundle of talent and determination, had taken hundreds of giant steps and had done Maine proud,” Putney gushed.

At Boston that year, Patti Lyons of Boston, who had been running and winning marathons since 1976, was the favorite. On this cool, rainy day Lyons started slowly and Benoit took the lead from the start and went through the mile in 5:42. Lyons soon took over and ran with a pack which included her coach. By five miles (28:00) Lyons had a 40-second lead. By Wellesley, Benoit, wearing No. 11 on her black Bowdoin jersey, had closed the gap to within 15 seconds. She caught Lyons at the start of Heartbreak Hill, the two running together for a mile. Lyons had been having problems with bursitis in her foot and could no longer hold the pace.

At mile 23, a fellow student handed Benoit a Red Sox baseball cap, which she put on backwards and wore the rest of the race. Her cap and Bowdoin shirt drew tremendous applause from the crowd as she ran the final miles. She crossed the finish in 2:35:15 to establish a new American record, and erased Liane Winter’s course record of 2:42:24, set in 1975. Her time was the world’s third best, as Benoit beat 520 women, 25 of whom ran under 2:56. Lyons took second in 2:38:22.

Later that fall, Benoit, who had been named an All-American in college cross country from 1972 through 1975, won the Division III National Cross Country Championships. In 1980, she ran another marathon in Auckland, New Zealand, clocking 2:31:23.

After a third-place showing at Boston in 1981 (2:30:16), Benoit was back again in 1983. She was now a track coach at Boston University and living in Watertown, Massachusetts. The favorite this year would be New Zealander Alison Roe who had won the race in 1981, and was the world record-holder. Roe’s opposition this day would come from Benoit who was in great shape, although the press did not consider her as a big threat to win. However, in September, 1982, she had run a 2:26:11 marathon in Eugene, Oregon, for the third fastest time in the world, and she’d run a 31:44 10-K. Two weeks before Boston Benoit had run 122 miles. But she was prepared for speed as well, having run a personal best in the mile, 4:36, just two months earlier. And she was physically strong as evidenced by her fourth-place finish in the World Cross Country Championships in March.

Frustrated at all the attention given to Roe, and with a world record on her mind, Benoit started hard and went through the mile in 4:47. She passed the 10-K mark in 31:45, only a second slower than her personal best for 10-K. She was on a 2:17 pace, but did not let up. She was feeling tremendous. Her 10-mile split was 51:38 and at the halfway point, 1:08:22. Roe by now had lost sight of Benoit and was having problems with a cramp in her calf. Jacqueline Gareau passed Roe and moved into 2nd place. Roe dropped out at 17 miles.

Benoit made it through the hills, but the bottoms of her feet were raw and she wondered if she was going to make it. She passed the 20-mile mark in 1:46:44. At Coolidge Corner she could hear her name being shouted from the rooftops. Most of her Boston University track team had gathered on top of the transit station roof to cheer her on. Benoit crossed the finish in a new world record time of 2:22:43, and she’d beaten Roe’s Boston course record by about four minutes. She had lowered the world women’s mark by 2 minutes, 46 seconds. Benoit was now in the national spotlight. She ran the Boston Marathon six times from 1979 through 1993.

Benoit persevered through a number of serious injuries, even during the height of her running career. She fractured a tibia in the winter of 1977 skiing. She had surgery on both Achilles in the winter of 1982 and 1986. She underwent arthroscopic knee surgery on March 17, 1984, less than two months before she went on to win the Olympic trials marathon in 2:31:41, a feat that drew tremendous public attention to her running.

At the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, Benoit and Grete Waitz were the favorites. Waitz, a two-time Olympian at 1500 meters and a former marathon world record holder, was undefeated in seven marathons and had beaten Benoit at various distances 10 of the 11 times they had met. Benoit, who was wearing a white painter’s cap with a flap in back, moved ahead after only 14 minutes and pulled away, amazed that no one went with her.

Waitz apparently believed that Benoit would fade. But it did not happen. At 15-K Benoit had a 51 second lead, and by 25-K she was 1 minute, 51 seconds in front. After 30-K, Waitz started to close in, but it was too late. As Benoit approached the tunnel leading to the stadium she could sense the excitement of the members of the huge crowd as they rose to their feet. She decided to look straight ahead, as she thought she might faint if she looked around her. She finished 400 meters in front of Waitz in a time of 2:24:52, an amazing time considering the intense heat and humidity. That moment remains her greatest in running.
The 1984 Olympics did not mark the end of her racing career and certainly did not mark the end of her interest in and love of running. Benoit continued to compete, receiving many invitations over the coming years to compete throughout the country as a masters runner. In February, 2000, just three months short of her 43rd birthday, she ran in the Olympic trials in Columbia, South Carolina. Her 2:41:06 qualifying time gave her a 27th place ranking in the field, which included four Mainers. On a hot, humid day on a hilly course in Columbia, Benoit finished 9th in 2:39:59. She was one of two Mainers in the top 10 as Susannah Beck, a Yarmouth native, took 4th in 2:36:46. Through age 42, Benoit had run 25 marathons, winning nine.

Those who had the greatest influence on her were Ron Thompson, the coach of Country Runners, and Ron Kelly. “Ron Kelly took me to several meets in the New England area when I first started to run competitively,” said Benoit. “Ron Thompson provided the coaching for my first running team experience.” Others praised by Benoit were Keith Weatherbie, the Cape Elizabeth boys coach who allowed her to run with the boys teams, and John Babington, coach of Liberty AC, who “provided me with great coaching and the first opportunity to compete at the national level.” Finally, Bob Sevene advised and coached her during the period when she was coaching at Boston University.

As of 2000, Benoit still owned the American record in the marathon, 2:21:21, which is the second fastest time ever run by a woman. Her record run was in the Chicago Marathon in October, 1985 when she finished 15 seconds behind Ingrid Kristiansen of Norway. Samuelson’s two best marathons are among the top ten of all-time.

Among her other personal bests are: 4:36.48 for the indoor mile (1983); 8:53 for 3,000 meters (1983); 15:43 for 5-K (1980); 31:43 for 10-K; 53:18 (American record) for 10 miles (1982); 1:08:31 (world best) for the half-marathon (1984). Other outstanding achievements include a women’s course record at Falmouth, Massachusetts in 1982, and a fourth-place finish in the World Cross-Country Championships in 1983 in Gateshead, England.

Among the awards she received were Brodrick Award in 1979 as the outstanding college cross country runner in the nation, and the Jesse Owens Award in 1984. She was inducted into the Maine Sports Hall of Fame the same year and was also inducted into the National Boys and Girls Club Hall of Fame. In 1994, she received the New England Women’s Leadership Award.

From 1981 through 1983, Benoit was Boston University’s long distance coach. She has been a consultant to Nike, Inc. since 1978, and she has also written an autobiography, Running Tide, as well as The Complete Book of Women’s Running, published in 1994. She has been a highly sought-after lecturer. Samuelson has also received honorary degrees from Williams College and Colby-Sawyer College.

Her hometown of Cape Elizabeth erected a life-sized statue of Benoit at Fort Williams Park depicting her poised on one foot in the middle of a stride holding the American flag shortly after she’d won the first women’s Olympic marathon in Los Angeles. She was inducted into the Maine Running Hall of Fame at the first induction ceremony held in 1989.

Now that she had won everything there was to win, Benoit decided it was time to give something back to her sport, something very basic, the very foundation of her sport. She organized a race. Starting in 1997 she organized a 10-K race in her hometown of Cape Elizabeth and called it the Beach to Beacon 10-K. It became an annual event, and even in its first year, Benoit’s name and reputation helped draw some of the world’s best runners. Overnight it became the largest and most competitive race Maine ever had.