Athletics: Kathrine Switzer to speak at North America's Oldest Road Race - Hamilton's Around the Bay

“In 1967, irate race official Jock Semple tried forcibly to remove Kathrine Switzer from the then all-male Boston Marathon simply because she was a woman. Luckily for Switzer, the official was bounced out of the race instead by her boyfriend and she went on to finish. Switzer was inspired by the incident to create opportunities around the world for women in running and walking and has led over a million women to the starting line of fitness through her motivational talks and events she has created. Switzer is also the winner of the 1974 New York City Marathon and author of Running and Walking for Women Over 40 and will be appearing at the Around the Bay Gala Pasta Dinner, Saturday March 27th 2004 at the Hamilton Convention Centre.

For more information see www.aroundthebayroadrace.com.

Kathrine Switzer Biography

Highlights:
• Broke the gender barrier at the 1967 Boston Marathon, when she was the first woman to officially enter the race.
• Winner of the 1974 New York City Marathon
• Emmy Award-winning television commentator
• Author, Running and Walking for Women over 40: the Road to Sanity and Vanity
• Founder and Director, Avon Running Global Women’s Circuit
• Inducted into the National Distance Running Hall of Fame, July 1998, Inaugural Class
• Inducted into the International Scholar-Athlete Hall of Fame, June, 2003
• Named Runner of the Decade (19666-76) and One of the Visionaries of the Century (2000) by Runners World Magazine
• Received Abebe Bikila Award from New York Road Runners for worldwide contribution to running, 2003
• Received Pioneer Award in Sports Management from University of South Carolina’s College of Sports and Entertainment Business

Kathrine Switzer will always be best known as the woman who challenged the all-male tradition of the Boston Marathon and became the first woman to officially enter and run the event. Her entry created an uproar and worldwide notoriety when a race official tried to forcibly remove her from the competition. Three decades later, the incident continues to capture the public imagination and is, in part, the reason Switzer has dedicated her multi-faceted career to creating opportunities on all fronts for women.

Switzer has run 35 marathons, won the 1974 New York City Marathon and in 1975 was ranked 6th in the world and 3rd in the USA in women’s marathon. After a successful athletic career, she turned her attention to the creation of women’s opportunities in sport, a sports marketing career, communication, and motivating others in both fitness and business.

Having been denied many athletic opportunities herself, Switzer’s original goal of establishing opportunities in women’s running first emerged in a big way when she created the Avon International Running Circuit for cosmetics giant Avon Products, Inc. over 20 years ago. This worldwide series of women’s events and Switzer’s tireless lobbying were instrumental in making the women’s marathon an official event in the Olympic Games. The first women’s Olympic marathon was 1984. The Avon program also revolutionized global social and cultural thinking as it opened the door for public acceptance of women’s sports in many countries where few, if any, existed before. (In 2003, Switzer was awarded the Pioneer in Sport Management Award by the University of South Carolina’s School of Sports and Entertainment Management for the creation of this innovative program.)

As the then-Director of Sports and Public Relations, Switzer also was responsible for Avon’s sponsorship of all the company’s sports sponsorships when they reached a new height in the 1980s with over $9 million annual budget. At this time, the company was the title sponsor of Women’s Championship Tennis, the developmental Avon Futures Tennis circuit, the World Figure Skating Championship, the Women’s International Bowling Congress Championship and miscellaneous equestrian and track and field events in addition to the Avon International Running Circuit.

Avon’s sponsorship of women’s sports today is limited to the global portion of Avon Running, which continues in 9 countries and has had over a million participants. As president of her own company, AtAlanta Sports Promotions, Switzer today continues to act as Director of Avon Running, Global Women’s Circuit in a consulting capacity.

For 2002 & 2003, Kathrine was also the first Director of Women’s Health and Fitness for RYKA, the only performance athletic footwear company that makes shoes and equipment exclusively for women. In 2002, RYKA launched Take Fitness to Heart, it’s own series of women’s running and walking events which are designed to encourage women to embrace a healthy exercise program to prevent heart disease. Switzer served as a spokesperson and advisor for the company, and continues as an outspoken proponent of the value of exercise in preventing women’s heart disease.

In 2004, Switzer continues her promotion of lifelong fitness as she joins Grete Waitz as a spokesperson for the newly-launched MORE Marathon, the first ever marathon for over-40 women only which will be held in New York’s Central Park on March 21. The event is sponsored by MORE Magazine.

As a communicator, Switzer works as TV commentator, writer and public speaker. She has worked for all major networks—ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, Turner, Oxygen, Television New Zealand and the Asian Broadcasting Union,as well as scores of local stations -- and covered the Olympic, Commonwealth and Goodwill Games; World and National championships; Olympic Trials; 25 Boston, 19 Pittsburgh, 15 New York City, and 12 Los Angeles Marathons, as well as hundreds of local road races. In 1997 she won an Emmy Award for her commentary for Los Angeles.

As a writer, Switzer is also widely recognized as an innovator and leader in women’s fitness and health as well as running. For many years, she has motivated hundreds of thousands of women around the world to the starting line of fitness, using running or walking as a cost-effective and time efficient means for women to obtain heath, optimum weight and self-esteem. Her book, Running and Walking For Women over 40 ..the Road to Sanity and Vanity (St. Martin’s Press) is a best seller in the Unite States and is published also in national versions in New Zealand,Germany, Hungary, and Australia. Her articles have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Parade, Women Today, Runners World, Running Times, Marathon & Beyond and other publications. She likewise has been featured in many of these same publications and on numerous radio and TV shows, including Oprah, Today, Good Morning America, Tonight and Nightline. Kathrine Switzer is a dynamic and effective speaker. She is a woman who has pioneered an obscure activity into global movement, and has parlayed her success as an iconoclastic athlete also into successful corporate sports marketing and public relations careers with Avon, AMF Incorporated, and Bristol Myers. Whether business, sports or health, Switzer is sought after to speak to corporate, university, association and convention groups because she is a fit, authentic success herself, and conveys high energy in the following topic areas:
• ”Becoming the Hero in Your Own Life"-- a get-real health and fitness experience, Switzer motivates audiences to make fitness a part of their time-constrained lives, telling why and showing how to take charge of their own health and well-being. (Switzer is also in demand to lead interactive events and fitness clinics for men and women of all ages, sizes and previous experience. She receives a constant stream of thank you letters from people whose lives she’s changed.)
• Forestalling the Aging Process: We’re living longer, here’s how to live better. The realities of aging and how to fight back effectively.
• Business: Expert, innovative and spark-generating presentations in Event Management, Sports Marketing, Public Relations, and Destination Tourism
• Sports: Switzer is a pivotal figure in women’s sports history, as well as the women’s Olympic movement and the global history of running. She captivates audiences with her often rollicking and always moving talks on the history of women in sports and in particular the tremendous social and cultural change that has occurred through the women’s sports movement. She is a visionary and offers up her thought-provoking glimpses of the future for all audiences.

Switzer has also received numerous citations and awards for her efforts in advancing sports opportunities for women, including a New York State Regents Medal of Excellence, and the Billie Jean King Award from the Women’s Sports Foundation for her contribution to sports. She was named “Runner of the Decade” and one of four “Visionaries of the Century” by Runner’s World magazine, and an Honor Fellow from the National Association of Girls and Women in Sports. In 1998 she was one of the five inaugural inductees into the National Distance Running Hall of Fame, and in 2000, the Road Runners Club of America honored her with the Fred Lebow Award for contribution to women’s running. In 2003, she was awarded the prestigious Abebe Bikila Award by the New York Road Runners for her worldwide contributions to running. Earlier that year she was inducted into the International Scholar-Athlete Hall of Fame; she is also in the Halls of Fame at Syracuse University, Lynchburg College, and the Road Runners Club of America.

Switzer received both her BA (dual degree in journalism and English) and her MA (in Public Relations) from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications. She is married to Dr. Roger Robinson, professor, author and noted age-group runner. The couple divide their time living in New York City and Wellington, New Zealand. Switzer continues to run six miles a day.

Kathrine Switzer's website: www.kathrineswitzer.com.