“To pull a Rosie Ruiz” (to cheat your way to victory) is a phrase used by marathon runners. Here is the story about the person behind the phrase.
Very few of the scammers this country has produced are so notorious that their scams have become a phrase, but Rosie Ruiz achieved that dubious distinction.
She ran her first marathon in 1979, the New York Marathon. At the time, the Cuban immigrant worked as an administrative assistant at a commodities trading firm in Manhattan. Her time of 2:56:33 was good enough to qualify for the Boston Marathon the following year. Excited by Ruiz’s finish in New York, her employer paid her expenses to run in Boston.
While there were some whispers about her cheating in the New York Marathon, it was not until the 1980 Boston Marathon that Ruiz was found out. She had intended to cheat that day, but not in the way things turned out.
It’s believed Ruiz didn’t want to win the 1980 women’s division of the Boston Marathon. Apparently, Ruiz’s plan was to jump into the middle of the pack of runners and finish toward the top of the field. But she miscalculated the jump-in point, joining the marathon one mile from the finish line, not realizing she was well ahead of the other 448 female competitors. She not only finished first, but Ruiz produced the third fastest time ever recorded by a woman in a marathon and had the fastest woman’s time in Boston Marathon history.
In only the second marathon of her life, Rosie Ruiz had just won the prestigious and highly competitive Boston Marathon. Moreover, her time was an astounding 25 minutes faster than her time in the New York Marathon. Ruiz was awarded a medal, laurel wreath, and silver bowl for her accomplishment.
But doubts about her performance surfaced quickly. Race organizers based their decision on about 10,000 photographs taken along the last mile of the Boston race, and Ruiz did not appear in any of them until the very end. In addition, other runners had no memory of seeing her in the race. In her post-race interview, Ruiz seemed unable to answer basic questions about her training regimen and couldn’t recall particular parts of the course.
Evidence was building that Ruiz was not only a fraud but a rather unconvincing one. More evidence came when eyewitnesses said that they had seen Ruiz jump into the race. One witness recalled it this way. “I saw a woman stumble out of the crowd. She looked like she wasn’t a runner. Her arms were flying around. She wore a number, and I didn’t take her very seriously.” Then, the next day, he picked up a newspaper and saw a picture of Ruiz. It was the same person he had seen “stumble out of the crowd.”
In the end, Rosie Ruiz’s reign as Boston Marathon winner lasted only eight days. On April 29, 1980, Boston Marathon officials stripped Ruiz of her title and named Jacqueline Gareau of Canada the women’s division champion. Still, Ruiz would not admit she had cheated. “I ran the race,” she insisted in the face of increasing scrutiny. “I cannot stand there and say I did not.”
The Boston scandal caused the New York Marathon officials to examine her performance more closely, and Ruiz’s claims of a third-place finish unraveled. A freelance photographer, Susan Morrow, told The New York Times that she had been on the subway to Central Park with Ruiz while the marathon was ongoing. Ruiz exited the subway and made for the finish line.
No matter … Ruiz would not admit she had cheated, and in the following decades, Ruiz kept her medals, maintaining that she had completed and won the races, fair and square.
But time was not kind to Ruiz. In 1982, she was accused of stealing cash and checks from the real estate firm where she had been employed as a bookkeeper and sentenced to a week in jail and five years’ probation. The next year, Ruiz was jailed again after attempting to sell cocaine to undercover agents at a hotel in Miami.
Understandably, runners and fans of running have always resented that Ruiz refused to admit her guilt. In 2015, after Kendal Schler was found to have snuck on the course to “win” the St. Louis Marathon, Runner’s World labeled her the “Rosie Ruiz of St. Louis.”
Not surprisingly, Ruiz is unfondly remembered in Boston and New York. For example, a bar located one mile from the finish line of the Boston Marathon annually displays a sign, “Rosie Ruiz started here.” T-shirts emblazoned with a subway token and “Rosie Ruiz Track Club” have been sold in New York.
For her part, Rosie Ruiz has pulled her last “Rosie Ruiz.” She died in 2019.
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John Sullivan is a Baltimore writer and lawyer. His novel, Mr. Fox, about a scam, is looking for a publisher.
Rosie Ruiz, who faked victory in the Boston Marathon, dies at 66, Richard Sandomir, New York Times, August 8, 2019.
Rosie Ruiz fakes Boston marathon win, www.history.com.
Rosie Ruiz, infamous for cheating 1980 Boston Marathon, dies at 66, Roger Robinson, Runners World, August 7, 2019.
Pulling a Rosie: the legacy of Boston’s most controversial runner, Hayden Bird, Boston.com. March 22, 2019.
She’s the eternal punchline for running jokes, Orlando Sentinel, November 16, 1997.
