I was at the finish line at Boston in 1980, on a photographer’s platform above and behind the finish line.  When someone yelled, “Here comes the first woman,” I looked at Rosie, and immediately told the other photographers, “she’s not real, she’s a fake, be sure to shoot the next woman,” or words to that effect.  No way was that woman an elite runner.  She was pudgy, she was wearing a t-shirt, a sweat spot strategically placed high on her chest, she was affecting a stagger as if that was her idea of how elite marathoners finished their races.  I had no evidence, just a glance. Any runner would have known immediately that Rosie was a fake. – Jeff Johnson

Can anybody explain the expression on Rosie’s face in the photo above?

Where she is ironically surrounded by law enforcement officers, because she was that type of girl.

Looks to me like she is impersonating an exhausted athlete while barely able to contain a satisfied smirk. Not like ‘I finished’ but more ‘I got away with it.’

Some say Rosie Ruiz is the most famous marathoner in American history. Just ask any non-runner.

Rosie M. Vivas (née Ruiz; June 21, 1953 – July 8, 2019) was a Cuban fraudster who, among other schemes, was declared the winner in the female category for the 84th Boston Marathon in 1980. Her title was stripped eight days after the race when it was discovered she had not run the entire course. She is believed to have jumped onto the course about a half-mile before the finish.

Early life and education

Ruiz was born in Havana, Cuba, and moved to Memphis, Florida, with her family in 1962 when she was eight years old.  After immigrating to the United States, Ruiz was separated from her mother and lived with aunts, uncles, and cousins in Hollywood, Florida. In 1972, she graduated from South Broward High School and then attended Wayne State College in Nebraska. She graduated with a degree in music in 1977.

New York City Marathon

She moved to New York City in the 1970s, eventually finding work with Metal Traders, a commodities firm. In 1979, she qualified for the New York City Marathon and was credited with a time of 2:56:29, the 11th woman overall — enough for her to qualify for the Boston Marathon.

Ruiz’s application for the NYC marathon arrived after the cut-off date for the race, but she received special dispensation from the New York Road Runners due to her claim that she was dying of brain cancer.

After the 1980 Boston Marathon, New York City Marathon officials investigated Ruiz’s run and concluded that she cheated and did not run the entire course, so on April 25, 1980, she was retroactively disqualified from the race.

Freelance photographer Susan Morrow reported meeting her on the subway during the New York City Marathon and accompanying her from the subway to the race. She lost touch with Ruiz after that, but came forward when the news of Ruiz’s dubious Boston win broke. According to Morrow, she met Ruiz on the subway and together they walked a distance to the finishing area, where Ruiz identified herself as an injured runner. She was escorted to a first aid station and volunteers marked her down as having completed the marathon, thus qualifying her for the Boston Marathon.

New York City Marathon officials launched an investigation and could not find any sign of Ruiz near the finish line. On April 25, based on this and other evidence, the games committee of the New York City Marathon retroactively disqualified Ruiz from the 1979 race, with marathon director Fred Lebow saying she could not possibly have run the entire course.

Boston Marathon

On April 21, 1980, Ruiz appeared to win the Boston Marathon’s female category with a time of 2:31:56. Her time would have been the fastest female time in Boston Marathon history as well as the third-fastest female time ever recorded in any marathon.

However, suspicions mounted about Ruiz almost from the beginning. Men’s winner Bill Rodgers, who had just won his third straight Boston Marathon, noticed Ruiz could not recall many things that most runners know by heart, such as intervals and splits. Other observers noticed that Ruiz was not panting or coated in sweat, and her thighs were less lean and muscular than would be expected for a world-class runner. She later released stress-test results showing her resting heart rate as 76. Most female marathoners have a resting heart rate in the 50s or lower.

As she answered reporters’ questions, it quickly became clear that she was a most remarkable neophyte at the craft she had turned on its ear. She said she had been training hard only for a year and a half, although she had run track in high school and college. Her best time for the mile, she said, was 5:30. She is a member of no club, trains 60 to 70 miles a week, and most crucially, was seen by no other woman runner in the race. Asked about this, Ruiz said, “I paced myself off the men. Since it was only my second race, I’m not familiar with watching out for where everybody is.” She could recall no splits for the intermediate distances. Indeed, the term split had to be explained to her. – Kenny Moore, Sports Illustrated 6/08/1980

In addition, her time of 2:31:56 was an unusual improvement, more than twenty-five minutes ahead of her reported time in the New York City Marathon six months earlier. When asked by a reporter why she did not seem fatigued after the grueling race, she said, “I got up with a lot of energy this morning.”

I should say.  A 5:30 miler claims to have run 26 miles, 385 yards at a pace of 5:46 per mile? It that for me to question?

Some female competitors thought it odd that, when asked about the suburb of Wellesley while running through it, Rosie did not mention the mass of students of Wellesley College. It’s a tunnel of high-pitched noise as the crowd goes out of its mind in support of the first female. “Shrieking courage,” to quote Kenny Moore. Not something you forget.

More seriously, no other runners could recall seeing her. Jacqueline Gareau was told she was leading the race at the eighteen-mile mark, while Patti Lyons was told she was second at the seventeen-mile mark. Ruiz could not have passed either of them without being seen. Several spotters at checkpoints throughout the course also did not remember seeing her in the first group of women. In addition, she did not appear in any pictures or video footage.

Two Harvard students, John Faulkner and Sola Mahoney, recalled seeing Ruiz burst out of a crowd of spectators on Commonwealth Avenue, half a mile from the finish.

A few days after New York City Marathon officials disqualified Ruiz, the Boston Athletic Association (BAA) disqualified Ruiz from the Boston Marathon. While New York’s action seemed to have automatically disqualified Ruiz from Boston as well, Boston officials wanted to do their own investigation before taking action. 

Canadian Jacqueline Gareau was declared the female winner, with a time of 2:34:28, a new course record. Having finished in 2:35:08, Patti [Dillon] Lyons was moved up to second.

During a CTV interview in July 2019, Gareau said she felt pity for Ruiz, but had no ill feelings toward her.

Later life and death

In 1982, Ruiz was arrested for embezzling $60,000 (about two-hundred grand in today’s dollars) from a real estate company where she worked. She spent one week in jail and was sentenced to five years’ probation. She then moved back to South Florida, where she was arrested in 1983 for her involvement in a cocaine deal. She was sentenced to three years’ probation. 

In January 1984, Ruiz married Aicaro Vivas, had three children, and divorced in August 1986 but kept the Vivas surname thereafter. 

In 1988, she met Margarita Alvarez at a party, who would be her partner for the next 26 years. In April 1993, she was working in West Palm Beach as a client representative for a medical laboratory company.

She lived another 39 years after the race. When the curious brought it up, she slammed the door. When neighbors asked if she was “that Rosie,” she told them they were confused.

She met Gareau, the real winner, once, in Miami some time after the race. Gareau proposed a truce and told Ruiz that she wasn’t angry. Ruiz responded defiantly: “I ran that race, and I’m going to run it again.”

Somehow, despite the jokes and the arrests and the divorce and the infamy and the irrefutable evidence, Ruiz never publicly admitted that she cheated. All that time, she said she held onto one thing that she believed was rightfully hers. Hidden away, in an undisclosed nook that she said was safe, was her gold medal.

As of 2000, she still maintained that she ran the entire 1980 Boston Marathon. However, an acquaintance, Steve Marek, said she admitted to him a few months after the race that she had cheated, recalling “she jumped out of the crowd, not knowing the first woman hadn’t gone by yet. Believe me, she was as shocked as anyone when she came in first.”

Rosie Ruiz died of cancer at age 66 on July 8, 2019, in Lake Worth Beach, Florida.

According to her obituary, a funeral was not scheduled due to Rosie’s final wishes. “She would always want you to remember to celebrate life because tomorrow is never promised. Never forget to fight no matter what life throws your way.”

Back in 1980, I was at the Boston Marathon finish line when Rosie Ruiz came in huffing and puffing, breaking the tape. We runners all knew immediately that she was a fraud. We had no proof. But we knew. Perhaps it was because we were marathoners ourselves, and we know our sport. 

It took the Boston Athletic Association, which runs the Marathon, more than a week to disqualify Ruiz; but my friends and I knew the truth immediately. We had to stay mostly quiet in that interim period because it’s not cool to judge someone without evidence. But we knew. – Amby Burfoot

Sources: Wikipedia. New York Times. Rosie’s obituary.