Joan Benoit Samuelson - The Unstoppable

GYMNASTICS - 1984 OLYMPICS - TEAM USA

ARCHETYPE: THE INNOCENT

Day 120/135

Athletic Accomplishments

Joan Benoit is an American long distance runner. Or more accurately, she was THE American long distance runner of the 1970s and 1980s.

Growing up in Maine, Samuelson was a multisport athlete who originally started running as part of her recovery from broken leg she suffered during a slalom ski accident. As it turns out, that injury helped her find her greatest athletic love and talent.

Benoit attended Bowdoin for college, where she played varsity field hockey. Although the school did not have a cross-country team, Benoit continued running, training with the men’s cross-country team and any others who would run and push her. On her own, she traveled for marathon and half marathon races, eventually getting benched in field hockey for showing up to games tired and drained from her running competitions.

At a crossroads, in 1977 Benoit accepted a scholarship to run North Carolina State to train and run with their cross country team. She was a two-time All-American (1977 and 1978) and led the team to an ACC championship in 1978. She won the Broderick Award in 1979 as the nation’s best cross-country runner.

In 1979, Benoit returned to Benoit to finish her degree. She also entered the Boston Marathon that year, placing first and setting a course record, while wearing a backwards Red Sox cap and a Bowdoin racing jersey. When she returned to campus, students greeted her with a standing ovation everywhere she went.

In the years that followed, Benoit won races at just about every distance. She won the U.S. 10,000 meter championship in the same spring as she won a major marathon. She was also the lead runner on the world championship U.S. cross country team.

During her career, Benoit set many records, holding both the American half and full marathon records for over 20 years. In 1983, she re-set the Boston Marathon record, running a 2:22:43, which would not be broken for 11 years.

But perhaps Benoit’s most notable victory came at the 1984 Olympic Games, where she was among the field of the first ever Olympic women’s marathon. More on that later.

The following year, Benoit went on to win the Chicago Marathon and set the American record (2:21:21). She also won the James E. Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in the United States.

Over 40 years later, she has continued running—still posting sub-3 hour marathons, into her sixties.

For being such a relentless badass and undisputed champion, Benoit was inducted into the National Distance Running Hall of Fame in 1998, the Maine Women's Hall of Fame in 2000, the National Track and Field Hall of Fame in 2004, and the USATF Masters Hall of Fame in 2014.

Character Archetype: The Unstoppable

Flashback to the 1984 Olympics, the first time the women’s marathon is an event at the Summer Games.

Joan Benoit had qualified for the U.S. team, despite having arthroscopic surgery less than 3 weeks before trials. Many were concerned whether her knees would hold up for the main event.

But on marathon day, Benoit took an early lead and never looked back. As she entered the Coliseum on her way to the finish line, the crowd went bananas for Benoit, who took off her dope-ass little white hat and waved it around in celebration for the final 400m of the race. The first ever gold medal marathoner, in front of a home crowd. Who doesn’t love that?

Joan Benoit is arguably the best American distance runner of all time, winning national and world titles at multiple distances. But at heart, Benoit is a marathoner. She’s won Boston and Chicago, setting records, and—even in her mid-60s—STILL running sub 3-hour marathons. Just try and stop her.