One day in the year hundreds of nobodies stand out as better conditioned athletes than all of the town’s over-publicized professionals. “I made it,” he says, feeling like Hillary on Everest. In 1967, Kathrine Switzer was nearly pulled off the Boston Marathon course by race official Jock Semple. A Newton cop named Frankie ‘O’Halloran does it by showing himself he can run all the way. Mile 10: Kathrine Switzer Meets Her Nemesis Again. Hemingway thought he had to go out and shoot lions to prove himself. Tragedy, farce, thriller, problem play-the Marathon is all of these. It is seen by more people and done by more people than any other spectacle we have. The Marathon is Boston’s finest sporting event because of its wide-open nature, its embracing of everyman-the demented and the daring, the heroes and the hopeless.
What are these ill-mannered men trying to accomplish? We know chivalry is dead, but has it been replaced by boorishness? Another female, Bobby Gibb, wasn’t mauled, but after she had run the 26 miles and 385 yards she was insulted by officials who refused to allow her across the finish line. Too, she was in better shape than Cloney, Semple or the state cops, and she got away, continuing to the finish. Fortunately Miss Switzer was protected by gentlemanly fellow competitors in the race.
0 kommentar(er)
