Other Initiatives · Honoring Marathon Legends · The Girl Who Ran
THE GIRL WHO RAN
Joan Benoit Samuelson and a long list of Boston Marathon champions came together several years ago to form the Bobbi Gibb Marathon Sculpture Project. Their goal? To raise funds to erect a sculpture of Gibb on the Boston Marathon course.
It was Gibb who, in 1966, popped out from behind forsythia bushes in Hopkinton to become the first woman to run Boston.
“As the first woman to finish the Boston Marathon, Bobbi Gibb opened up the door for all of us who followed,” noted Samuelson, a two-time Boston champ and winner of the first Olympic Marathon for women in 1984. “Without her courage and determination, we might never have gained the chance.”
Not only is the sculpture of Gibb, it is also by Gibb. She is an accomplished painter and sculptor who studied at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in the mid-1960s - the same year that she began running longer distances.
For 50 years, it had been my dream to sculpt a life-size woman runner to represent all the powerful women who have run Boston since 1966.
— Bobbi Gibb
The Bobbi Gibb Marathon Sculpture Project was coordinated by the 26.2 Foundation, which has helped install other marathon statues in and around Hopkinton – all statues of male officials or runners. “We believed it long past time to recognize the Boston Marathon’s great women runners,” says Tim Kilduff of the 26.2 Foundation. “The fact that Boston’s first woman runner is also a great sculptor made this project absolutely unique and appropriate.”
Several years in the making, and drawing on the support from more than 400 individuals and organizations, the sculpture – entitled ‘The Girl Who Ran,’ in honor of Bobbi’s children’s book about running – was unveiled to the public at the Hopkinton Center for the Arts in October of 2021.
It will be installed in Hopkinton near the Boston Marathon starting line once Hopkinton’s downtown corridor project is completed.