Grete Waitz may have been a world-champion distance runner, but she’d never run a marathon when she first came to New York from her native Norway in 1978 for the city’s fabled race.
But she won — setting a world record.
She’d go on to win eight more New York Marathons over the next decade — the greatest individual performance in the history of that competition.
Though she disclosed in 2005 that she was suffering from cancer, news of Waitz’s death yesterday at 57 came as a shock throughout the sports world.
Many recalled a woman who not only put women’s long-distance running on the map, but personified the meaning of “champion” in life, too. “Every sport should have a true champion like Grete,” said George Hirsch, chairman of the New York Road Runners. “A woman with such dignity and humanity and modesty.”
Few will ever forget her last New York marathon, in 1992, when — rather than seek a 10th title — she ran in tandem with race co-founder Fred Lebow, who was ill with brain cancer. The two crossed the finish line hand-in-hand.
As Hirsch noted, “New York adopted her as one of its true heroes.” RIP.