Nina Kuscsik: The Inaugural Champion

When Nina Kuscsik ran the 1972 Boston Marathon, she never intended to become the first woman to officially win the race, nor did she realize what that would mean for future generations of female runners.

Kuscsik ran because, simply, she loved the sport, and she saw no reason why she shouldn't partake in one of the most renowned marathons in the world.

"I was running already and I heard about the Boston Marathon, and I thought that was a wonderful one to try to run," Kuscsik said. "I was just going to run. I didn't have to break barriers … maybe speed barriers."

Before winning Boston, Kuscsik was known as a champion speed skater in her home state of New York. In 1954, when she was just 15, Kuscsik bought a $1 copy of Bill Bowerman's book, "Jogging," and something about the 90-page instructional manual struck a chord with her.

But it wasn't until she was 28, after she attended nursing school and had three kids, and when her bicycle broke, that Kuscsik began to run.

"It's kind of unbelievable to think of the workload and how she handled it," said running icon Kathrine Switzer, who was one of the eight women who ran in Boston's first official women's field in 1972.

In 1969, after years of training, Kuscsik decided to run Boston, only there was one problem: women weren't officially allowed in the race. Along with two other female athletes (Sara Mae Berman and Elaine Pederson), Kuscsik ran anyway and recorded a time of 3:46, but no one logged her finish in the race results.

At the time, the Amateur Athletics Union did not admit women into marathons. It took Kuscsik and other athletes two years of lobbying, attending meetings, and pleading their case for female runners to get the recognition they deserved.

"Nina was terrific and did all the legwork," said Switzer. "We all lobbied and pushed, but Nina was the one who went to the meetings and put forward the petitions and proposals."

With Kuscsik championing the cause, the rules were changed. Women were allowed to run more than five miles and, in special cases, were allowed to run marathons, but only if they started separately from the men.

"It's extraordinary to think what the special cases were," Switzer said. "The special cases were obviously those of us who could run a marathon and those who had been doing it."

Meanwhile, in the Oval Office, President Richard Nixon signed Title IX into effect. It signaled the start of a movement for equal rights in sports, and Kuscsik was at its forefront.

In the spring of 1972, she received her official race number for Boston. Kuscsik ran in Danskin shorts and a buttoned blouse, but she carefully planned outfit was soon ruined by diarrhea midway through the race.

Kuscsik crossed the Boylston Street finish line with a time of 3:10:26. She wanted a sub-three-hour time, but diarrhea combined with a scorching hot spring day made for terrible running conditions.

Kuscsik thought her time was "pretty lousy," she said at the time.

"That day we all had a very hard time because of the heat," Switzer said. "Nina had diarrhea, Sara Mae Berman had the flu, and I wore the wrong clothes."

Running marathons is grueling and rough, and moms with three kids don't tend to do it. But Kuscsik knew she belonged there, knew she deserved to win, and nothing was going to stop her.

She finished, and so did the seven other female runners, and that's all that mattered.

"My fondest memory was showing that women could run marathons for their enjoyment and health," Kuscsik said. "Anytime we did good running and the television was on us, it showed to other people, families, and girls in the families that they can run and it's acceptable," Kuscsik said.

For the newly crowned champion, Boston was a springboard for a career decorated with athletic accomplishments

and female activism. Shortly after her historic win, Kuscsik ran the New York City Marathon and won that race twice.

She then set her sights on bigger, global goals and played an instrumental role lobbying USA Track & Field to petition the International Olympic Committee to include women's marathon racing in the 1984 Olympics.

In 1981, the IOC adopted the race for the Los Angeles Games. The victory was huge and set in motion a series of events that saw other national federations allow female runners to compete in the first Olympic women's marathon on August, 5, 1984.

"I never got to run in an Olympics," Kuscsik told Runner's World in 2012. "But I felt like I did that day."

When Kuscsik ran Boston in 1972, braving the sweltering spring heat, she did it because she wanted to, because it was healthy, because it was her right.

But for a generation of female runners to follow, Kuscsik crossing the finish line was historic, it was inspirational, and it was the benchmark to beat. More importantly, it reaffirmed what many women already knew—that if men could do it, they could do it too, if not better.

Nina Kuscsik finished the 1972 race in 3:10:26.

Reported by JP Azzopardi. Jean-Paul Azzopardi is a graduate student at Boston University and editor of The Daily Free Press.