Among the field of Boston Marathon runners are a select few that have experienced breaking the tape on Boylston Street. Three past champions—Joan Benoit Samuelson, Amby Burfoot, and Gelindo Bordin—will line up amongst the 36,000 runners on Marathon Monday.
"Because of what happened last year and because it's the 30th anniversary of [my win at the 1984] Olympic Marathon, I'm here for a myriad of reasons," said Samuelson, 56, who won the race in 1979 and 1983. "This year I'm either going to run as hard as I possibly can or I'll run with my daughter or son. I hope I'll know what the right thing to do is on Monday morning."
Samuelson ran the race last year, marking the 30th anniversary of her second win at Boston with a time of 2:50:29, the fastest marathon ever run by a woman in the 55-59 age group.
Burfoot, 67, who runs the Boston Marathon every five years after his win in 1968, also ran last year to mark the 45th anniversary, but was stopped near the Massachusetts Avenue underpass because of the bombings. He will return to finish the race this year.
The only male victor of both an Olympic and Boston Marathon, Italian Bordin is the third former champion to run from Hopkinton to Copley Square on April 21.
Four-time winner Bill Rodgers will serve as the grand marshal of the race and will ride in the pace car ahead of the leaders.
"To have the chance to still be involved, it's a great honor," Rodgers said. "After the bombing last year, I wanted to run Boston this year. I was in pretty good shape for an old-timer at 66 years old. But I strained my hamstring at the Cooper River Bridge Run down in South Carolina on April 5. It's healing now, though.
"But runners, we have to come back. We get knocked down. It's just like what happened with the bombing. You can't keep marathoners down. But I couldn't get back in time to run the race. I'll try for next year."
Greg Meyer, 58, will run the B.A.A. 5K on Saturday and serve as the finish line announcer throughout Marathon Monday.
"I feel a little possessive about this race, and after what happened last year, I remember watching the events unfolding in the hotel with Joanie and immediately saying, 'We're coming back next year,'" said Meyer, who is the most recent American winner of the men's race, having earned the laurel wreath in 1983.
When asked what it would mean for an American to win this year, he said, "We're long overdo. I think Shalane [Flanagan] has a chance. What's unique about her is that she brings an intensity to this race because she's from here. That passion and that fire, that means a lot."
Other past champions who will participate in the weekends events are Uta Pippig, 48, the winner of the 1994-1996 races who will run the B.A.A. 5K, and 1976 winner Jack Fultz, 65, who is the training advisor for the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge.
