HOPKINTON, Mass. (AP) — There was only one sculptor qualified to capture the combination of pain and satisfaction that Bobbi Gibb felt when she became the first woman to complete the Boston Marathon.
Gibb herself.
The artist, lawyer and running pioneer unveiled her self-portrait in bronze alongside the Hopkinton Town Green this spring — the first statue of a woman on the historic route to Boston. The work is just a few steps from the starting line, waiting to greet the 30,000-plus runners who will line up for Monday’s race.
More than 14,000 of them will be women, following in Gibb’s footsteps.
“It isn’t just me: It’s to symbolize women in the struggle to get full human and civil rights,” Gibb said at the unveiling, recalling a childhood when her mother couldn’t get a credit card, serve on a jury, work certain jobs — or run more than 1.5 miles. “I wanted to do something to change that. I said to my mother, ‘I can’t live like this.’”
Now 83, Gibb was running as many as 40 miles (64 kilometers) in training when she applied for a spot in the 1966 Boston Marathon but was rejected; rules at the time dictated that it wasn’t safe for women to run more than 1.5 miles (2.41 kilometers). She decided to run anyway.
“I said, ‘Ah, if I can prove this false belief about women wrong, I could throw into doubt all the others,’” she said. “This is the tragedy of prejudice: If you’re not allowed to do something, how can you prove you can do it, or how can you even know you can do it?”
Gibb took a four-day bus ride from San Diego, then hid in the bushes until the starting gun was fired. As she ran, she felt the support of the other runners and the crowds, especially the students at all-women Wellesley College around the midway point.
She finished in 3 hours, 21 minutes, 40 seconds — and ran the next two years as well. Although women were not officially admitted into the race until 1972, the Boston Athletic Association now considers her three victories in the “ Pioneer Era of Women’s Participation.”
“I think our sport is the greatest sport in the world. I’ve always believed in that, and I’ve lived that way, too. And I think Bobbi did, too,” four-time Boston winner Bill Rodgers said. “She felt the same way and said, ‘I want to be part of this great event.’
“And she’s a great sculptor, too,” he said. “She’s got talent.”
The course that winds its way toward Boston’s Back Bay already had a statue of longtime BAA official George Brown firing his starter’s pistol; of 1946 winner Stylianos Kyriakides of Greece a mile in; of two-time winner (and top 10 finisher 25 more times) Johnny Kelley at Heartbreak Hill; and of charity icons Rick and Dick Hoyt near the start. There’s even one of Spencer the therapy dog, who went viral for cheering on the runners after the 2013 bombing.
Gibb’s statue depicts her in her baggy Bermuda shorts and bathing suit tank top, wearing the leather nurse’s flats that were the best approximation of running shoes available to her at the time. She is in stride, staring ahead, her ponytail bouncing behind her.
The sculpture was first unveiled in 2021 at the Hopkinton Center for the Arts, about a mile from the starting line, while the funding and permitting was lined up to place it closer to the course. It now sits on a stone wall above a simple granite plinth.
Although the bronze runner is looking out toward Boylston Street 26.2 miles away, Gibb said the work was meant to represent her as she accomplished her goal.
“I’m finishing the race, looking a little ragged around the edges,” she said with a laugh. “This is what you’re going to look like when you get to Boston.”
Gibb, who also created the winners’ trophies for the 1984 U.S. Olympic marathon trials, said she originally wanted to sculpt two-time Boston winner and 1984 Olympic gold medalist Joan Benoit Samuelson. “She said, ‘No way. It’s you or no one,’” Gibb said. “So that’s what I did.”
The statue took several years to complete, as Gibb, who studied anatomy as part of a pre-med course at the University of California-San Diego, started in clay with the bones and added muscles, skin and clothes as she created the model for the bronze cast.
“I love to do it, so it takes a long time,” she said — a comment about the sculpture that could also apply to marathon running and her fight for gender equality. “It’s a labor of love.”
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