International Women's Day - Marathons

I've been reading up about the history of women in distance running - although Stamatis Rovithi ran the original marathon course in 1896 just after the Olympic revival, women were barred from marathons for many years. Bobbi Gibb hid in a bush before running the Boston Marathon unofficially in 1966, followed in 1967 by Katharine Switzer who entered as K.V.Switzer - officials only realised after she'd set off that K was Katharine and one attempted to remove her from the course. Women were only allowed in the Boston Marathon 5 years later!

It wasn't until 1984 that the first women's marathon took place at the Olympics - American Joan Benoit won.