Rosie Ruiz and the Boston Marathon
Boston, United States, 1980
This case is a work of fiction. The characters, names, places and events in the game do not portray real people. The account below is a factual summary, based on public sources, of the case that served as inspiration.
On April 21, 1980, the Boston Marathon had an unexpected winner in the women's race: Rosie Ruiz, 26, a New York resident who had been running for about a year and a half. She crossed the finish line in 2:31:56, the fastest women's time in the race's history up to then. Canadian Jacqueline Gareau, who had led among the women since the middle of the course, arrived minutes later, just in time to see the laurel wreath placed on another head.
Doubts arose right at the finish line. On a hot day, Ruiz looked rested and barely sweated; in front of reporters, she could not answer simple questions about training and pace. The course officials had not logged her number, and she did not appear in videos or in the thousands of photos taken along the first 40 kilometers. Two Harvard students said they saw her come out of the crowd and join the race near Kenmore Square, about a mile (1.6 km) from the finish.
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Boston, April 1980, a holiday Monday, 4:00 pm. At 2:32 pm, an unknown woman from New York crossed the marathon finish line first among the women, with a course record.
Eight days later, the association that runs the race stripped Ruiz of the title and declared Gareau the winner, honored in Boston the following month. The investigation also showed that, at the 1979 New York City Marathon, Ruiz had ridden the subway for part of the course to get the time that qualified her for Boston, and that result was voided. It was never explained how she got to Kenmore Square. Ruiz maintained all her life that she had won honestly, never returned the medal and died in 2019, aged 66.
