Posted: July 3, 2004

Athletics: Pippig To Become U.S. Citizen Tomorrow

From David Monti

(c) 2004 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved RaceResultsWeekly.com

Three-time BAA Boston Marathon champion Uta Pippig will become a U.S. citizen tomorrow, reported Jack Fleming, media director of the Boston Marathon.

The German-born Pippig, who finished first in Boston in 1994, 1995 and 1996, had recently relocated to nearby Concord, Mass., from Boulder, Colo. She will be sworn in at the Hatch Memorial Shell on Esplanade in Boston just prior to a rehearsal of the famous Boston Pops orchestra along with 24 other citizens-to-be.

To celebrate her U.S. citizenship, Pippig, 38, will run her first race as an American the following morning (the Independence Day holiday in the U.S.) at Concord's "Minuteman Classic" 5-mile Road Race. The race begins at 9:00 a.m. and the course includes traversing the North Bridge and running past other sites important to the start of the Revolutionary War in 1775.

Born in East Germany, Pippig is the only German to ever win the ING New York City Marathon and has also won the real Berlin Marathon three times. Her career best time of 2:21:45 was also a course record at Boston in 1994 (since surpassed by Margaret Okayo of Kenya).