Top 100 momentsNo. 42
Switzer at Boston
Kathrine Switzer enters the Boston Marathon as K.V. Switzer. An official tries to throw her off the course. The photograph lets women into the race.
Boston does not want women in the marathon. Kathrine Switzer registers with initials. In Hopkinton she pins on 261. A few miles in, race director Jock Semple tries to rip the bib off her. Her boyfriend blocks him. The cameras do not miss it.
She finishes. The AAU threatens bans. Within a few years Boston has an official women’s race. The marathon stops pretending a woman’s body cannot go 26 miles in public.
Title IX is still five years away. This picture is earlier: a man in a pullover grabbing a runner, and a sport that looks, for a moment, exactly as small as it is.