Posted: June 18, 2005

Athletics: Marathon Legend Waitz Being Treated For Cancer

From David Monti

© 2005 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved RaceResultsWeekly.com

Nine-time ING New York City Marathon champion, Grete Waitz, is being treated for cancer.

The sad news was reported to RRW by Mary Wittenberg, President and CEO of the New York Road Runners, the organizers of the marathon in New York.

"Grete is a dear friend of the sport of running, and an important part of our family at New York Road Runners," said Wittenberg in an e-mail message to New York Road Runners staff. "From her days as a young international track and cross country star, to her first New York City Marathon crown in 1978, she has been a leader in the sport."

Waitz, 51, told a Norwegian gossip magazine, Se og Hør, "I have been diagnosed with cancer and am receiving treatment for the disease in Oslo. As everyone surely understands this is a difficult situation both for me and those closest to me. This is really a matter that I would have preferred to keep to myself but on the other side I am a reasonably well-known person and there are surely many who have seen me going in and out of the hospital."

Neither Wittenberg nor Waitz identifed the type of cancer she was battling, nor its level of advancement.

In addition to her legendary victories in New York, Waitz also won the London Marathon twice in 1983 and 1986 and was the first world marathon champion in 1983. She won the silver medal in the inaugural women's Olympic marathon in 1984, and won the world cross country championships five times. During her career she set world records for 5 km, 8 km, 10 km, 15 km, 10 miles, half-marathon, 25 km (still standing), and the marathon on the road, and 3000m on the track.

"Grete is a champion and a fighter, and she will face this challenge head on as she has so many others," continued Wittenberg. "She will do so with the full support of New York Road Runners, the many New Yorkers who consider her one of their own, and the entire running world."