Boston Marathon Pays the Price of Competing in Today’s World

The venerable gentlemen who preside over the world’s oldest annual marathon footrace found out last year just what it feels like to hit the wall. And when they did, the hand-writing was all over it.

Members of the board of governors of the Boston Athletic Assn.--the men and one woman who make the rules and guard the time-honored traditions of the Boston Marathon--learned the hard way in 1985 that to survive, the race would have to enter the 20th Century.

That meant prize money.

The money issue had been dogging the Boston Marathon since 1982, when amateurism in the sport of distance running met its official death.

In the three years that followed, a series of spring marathons in this country and abroad began to emerge, all offering rich purses for top finishers, as well as substantial fees to elite athletes just for showing up. World-class runners started flocking to London, Rotterdam, Pittsburgh, and New Jersey--not Boston.

Boston, caught between the forces of tradition and change, was fast losing its position as the world’s premier spring marathon.

In 1985, almost no one of world-class stature showed up to run Boston--and the few who did said they wouldn’t come back unless Boston decided to turn professional. Also, The Athletics Congress, which governs track and field in the United States, told the BAA that TAC did not intend to award the 1988 Olympic trials to a race that did not offer prize money.

Finally, after years of resistance followed by months of struggle and negotiation, the BAA accepted the inevitable. In September, the BAA and the John Hancock Insurance Co. announced a sponsorship deal surpassing all sponsorship deals: Hancock had not only agreed to back the 1986 race but had commited to a 10-year contract involving $10 million in prize money and other financial services.

The package included multiyear contracts with elite athletes and equal purses of $30,000 each, plus a Mercedes-Benz, to the first-place man and woman this year.

“Boston has been resurrected,” said Tommy Leonard, the marathon’s unofficial good-will ambassador and proprietor of the Eliot Lounge, a popular runners’ hangout. “God bless John Hancock, that’s all I have to say. Last year Boston was about to die a quick death--but now it will be better than ever.”

The athletes agreed. “I’d do anything for John Hancock,” said four-time winner Bill Rodgers, who abandoned Boston last year but recently signed a five-year contract with Hancock. “I’d walk across water for them--that’s right--I’d even become a triathlete.”

Hancock, which replaced the Prudential Insurance Co. as the race’s major sponsor, has moved the old finish line a quarter of a mile, from beside the Prudential Tower to near the Boston Public Library on Boylston Street--right near Hancock’s glass-encased skyscraper. The starting line in Hopkinton has been moved forward about 35 yards to compensate, and 283 yards were deleted in Ashlan, about four miles into the race.

When the 90th running of this 26-mile 385-yard race gets under way Monday in Hopkinton, it will boast one of the swiftest men’s and women’s fields in its history.

It promises to be a dramatic comeback from 1985. Then, winner Geoff Smith--hobbled by cramps on a warm day but threatened by no other runners-- walked across the finish line in a relatively slow time of 2 hours 14 minutes 5 seconds, and Lisa Larsen Weidenbach, the women’s winner, cruised in more than eight minutes ahead of her closest competitor.

This year’s field includes Australian Rob de Castella, 1983 marathon world champion, whose best is a 2:08:18 in the 1981 Fukuoka Marathon; Italian Orlando Pizzolato, winner of the last two New York City Marathons; American Greg Meyer, who won the 1983 Boston Marathon; Pete Pfitzinger, a member of the 1984 U.S. Olympic marathon team, and, of course, Rodgers, a.k.a. Boston Billy, who won here in 1975, 1978, 1979 and 1980.

Others include Canadian David Edge; Mexican Raul Gonzales, the 1984 Olympic gold medalist in the 50-kilometer (about 31-mile) walk, who will be running his first marathon; American Ken Martin, who won last year’s Pittsburgh Marathon; American David Gordon, who just missed the U.S. Olympic marathon team when he placed fourth in the Olympic trials, and Mexican Arturo Barrios, who in recent weeks has been winning with impressive times in shorter distances and will be running his first marathon.

Welshman Steve Jones, who last fall came within a second of the 2:07:12 world record held by Portugal’s Carlos Lopes, was scheduled to run in Boston but was injured recently and withdrew.

Norwegian Ingrid Kristiansen, holder of the world record of 2:21:06, heads the women’s field and hopes this time to do what she and rival Joan Benoit Samuelson each failed to do last October in the America’s Marathon/Chicago--break the 2:20 barrier.

Kristiansen, however, running her first Boston Marathon, will not be dueling with Samuelson, who set the former world record of 2:22:43 here in 1983. Samuelson, who won the gold in the first women’s Olympic marathon in 1984, underwent surgery last fall and has not yet fully recovered. But it is no secret that she, too, wants to be the first woman to run a sub-2:20 marathon.

“I don’t know what effect it will have on Joan if Ingrid breaks 2:20 in Boston,” said Bob Sevene, Samuelson’s coach. “I don’t know whether it will get her twice as motivated--or take a big dream away.”

Kristiansen is said to be extremely fit. “There’s no one in her league,” Sevene said. “She’ll either break 2:20, or have some serious problems with the course. People have a lot of problems on that course the first time.”

Among those challenging Kristiansen will be New Zealander Lorraine Moller, 1984 Boston winner and fifth in the Olympic marathon; West German Charlotte Teske, 1982 Boston winner; Carla Buerskens of Holland, who was ranked seventh in the world in 1985; Canadian Jacqueline Gareau, 1980 Boston winner; Julie Isphording, a member of the 1984 U.S. Olympic marathon team, and Patti Catalano, three-time Boston runner-up who has been recovering from injuries suffered during the last four years and is hoping for a comeback.

Defending champion Weidenbach recently suffered a stress fracture and will not be running.

“I’m running Boston because it’s my favorite marathon,” Moller said. “Last year, I couldn’t afford to run it. This year, I can.”

Others include 78-year-old John A. Kelley, who won Boston in 1935 and 1945, and Roberta Gibb, who in 1966 was the first woman to run in Boston. Kelley will be entering his 55th Boston Marathon.

“I’m way behind in my training,” Gibb said, laughing. “If it weren’t the 20th anniversary of my run, I probably wouldn’t be attempting it.”

Former Boston champion Meyer, who, along with Rodgers, has criticized the BAA in the past for its treatment of runners and its failure to award prize money, has nothing but praise for Hancock officials this year.

“The Boston Marathon never even provided hotel rooms for athletes,” he said. “This year, they’re not only putting me up, they’re flying in my parents and putting them up, too.”

Most of the top runners have signed multiyear contracts. Instead of getting appearance money, anathema to the BAA and others in the sport, elite runners will be required to participate in race “clinics,” and--if they do not run in Boston--are prohibited from competing in another marathon 45 days before or after Boston. An exception will be made in 1988, if the Olympic trials are held somewhere other than in Boston.

In recent days, yet another controversy has developed over Boston--this one over the city’s chances of receiving the 1988 men’s and women’s trials.

Several weeks ago, Hancock reportedly made a deal with the United States Olympic Committee to offer race insurance coverage in exchange for the opportunity to hold the men’s trial. The agreement fell through after the TAC men’s long-distance running committee complained that the committee’s bid process had been circumvented.

A week later, the idea of holding the women’s trial was raised. There are serious questions that remain to be solved, however, including whether to change the day of the race from Monday to Sunday, and whether to have a separate start for American women or a totally separate race.

If the races were separate--for men, or for women--it really wouldn’t be the Boston Marathon then, would it?

In any event, this Monday--Patriots’ Day in New England--it will be.

“I’m eager to see it this year--to see if they’ve retained the best of the old while moving into the 1980s,” said running reporter Joe Henderson. “They did what they had to do--they had to recognize running as a professional sport. But it’s still Boston, and there’s no reason why it can’t be what it’s always been.”