Joan Benoit Samuelson, center, celebrates with silver medalist Grete Waitz, left, and bronze medalist Rosa Mota after being awarded the gold medal for winning the first Olympic women’s marathon on Aug. 5, 1984, in Los Angeles. Associated Press photo

Joan Benoit was already the world-record holder in the women’s marathon. The 27-year-old Cape Elizabeth native and Bowdoin College graduate had won the Boston Marathon twice.

But this was different.

When she stepped to the starting line on the Santa Monica Community College track on Sunday, Aug. 5, 1984, to begin a 26.2-mile trek to the Los Angeles Coliseum, the whole world would be watching.

It was the first Olympic women’s marathon. And many still didn’t think women should be allowed to run such distances.

“Before 1984, the longest a woman had run in Olympic competition was 1,500 meters,” said Joan Benoit Samuelson, who married Scott Samuelson a month after the 1984 Games. “A marathon takes over two hours, and at that time, no woman had run for longer than seven minutes (in the Olympics), and that made it all the more impactful, I realized.”

Two hours, 24 minutes and 52 seconds after she started, Benoit crossed the finish line as the first Olympic women’s marathon champion.

Forty years later, her touchstone achievement in the history of women’s sport still inspires.

“I think it goes without saying, no one can take it away from her. To be in the first-ever Olympic marathon and to win the gold? There’s never going to be another first,” said Emily Durgin, 30, a professional runner who grew up in Standish. “She was the one who started it all.”

Rachel Smith, 33, a Sanford native and 2021 Olympian in the 10,000 meters, agrees. Like Durgin, she’ll line up on Saturday at the TD Beach to Beacon 10K, the race Samuelson founded in 1998 to celebrate health, competition and community.

“Joan is such an icon. Whether you followed it live or heard about it years later, it’s so inspiring and impactful,” Smith said.

It’s not just runners from Maine who know the significance of Samuelson’s Olympic marathon win.

“She’s a legend. The whole world saw her win that first marathon,” said David Weatherbie, the president of the Beach to Beacon’s board of directors for 17 years. “The (professional runners) who come to the race, they all know who she is.”

BEFORE BENOIT could win the gold medal, she had to get to the Olympics. When she had arthroscopic knee surgery 17 days before the U.S. Olympic trials, making the U.S. team was far from certain.

Joan Benoit cross the finish line to win the U.S. women’s Olympic marathon trails on May 12, 1984, in Olympia, Washington. Benoit ran 2:31:04, just 17 days after arthroscopic knee surgery.  Associated Press photo

In Olympia, Washington on May 12, 1984, Benoit won the trials in 2:31:04.

Even with her spot secured, the knee surgery changed the perception of Benoit’s chances at the Olympics.

Prior to the surgery, Life magazine visited Freeport, where Benoit had bought an old home in need of repairs.

“People had written me off because of the knee issue. Life magazine was going to do a big photo essay of me … and they dropped it,” Benoit said. When the issue did hit newstands, “they had a little inset of me in a rocking chair sipping tea wearing a Lanz nightgown. It was like, ‘Poor Joan.'”

Samuelson pauses for a moment before putting the stamp on a favorite story.

“And I think that added fuel to my fire.”

STILL, SHE did not think herself the favorite when she toed the Olympic starting line, wearing a gray USA uniform and a white painter’s cap turned backward.

Norwegian star Grete Waitz wore the favorite’s mantel in the field of 50 women from 28 countries. Waitz, who died in 2011, had already won five New York City Marathons (she went on win four more). Waitz’s Norwegian teammate, 1984 London Marathon winner Ingrid Kristiansen, was another threat. Rosa Mota of Portugal had caught Benoit’s eye as a possible contender.

Those four and almost everyone else in the field were bunched together when, less than 3 miles into the race, Benoit made her move.

“I didn’t intend to take the lead, it just so happened that I was running with the pack and I wasn’t running efficiently,” Benoit said. Her legs were saying, “Go.” They needed to speed up to be comfortable.

Back in Cape Elizabeth, her high school track coach, Keith Weatherbie – David’s father – was saying “No.”

The Weatherbies had joined friends and some of the extended Benoit family at a home on Surf Road, not far from Fort Williams Park, to watch the race, which was shown from beginning to end on ABC, with Al Michaels, Marty Liquori and Kathrine Switzer on the call. When Benoit went to the front, Liquori and Switzer both questioned if it was the right move.

Keith Weatherbie went for a walk.

“I just had to leave. I was just so nervous that she took it out there, I couldn’t watch.”

On the other side of the continent, Toni Reavis was also watching. A friend of Joan’s since her early running days, Reavis is an author, running aficionado and the race announcer at many top road races, including the TD Beach to Beacon 10K. Reavis was hanging out with representatives of a major shoe company at a University of Southern California frat house.

“Those of us who knew Joanie, we knew who she was, and what a killer she was,” Reavis said. “When she pulled away at 3 miles, you could see Ingrid turn to Grete asking if they should go. Grete said, ‘No, no, she’ll be back.’ That was bad advice.”

Joan Benoit begins to break away from the pack early in the Olympic women’s marathon on Aug. 5, 1984. Benoit’s high school coach, Keith Weatherbie, was watching on TV and said,”I just had to leave. I was just so nervous that she took it out there, I couldn’t watch.” Ron Heflin/Associated Photo/International Olympic Photography Pool

Once Samuelson got onto the empty Marina Freeway, where no spectators were allowed, it wasn’t that different than being on a back road in Maine. She was running alone, putting in the work while the rest of the field was finding out that she could set a torrid pace and maintain it.

In a documentary produced by the Maine Historical Society to celebrate Samuelson and the 40th anniversary of her gold medal run, her former coach, Bob Sevene, described her front-running approach.

“She just hammered from the gun. That was her tactic. Just go out and make people see God,” Sevene says

As Samuelson entered the historic Coliseum to finish the final 500 or so yards of the marathon inside the stadium, her steely resolve and Yankee stoicism began to give way. Tens of thousands of American flag-waving people were joyously sharing the moment. And Samuelson saluted them back. After running the third-fastest women’s marathon in history to that point, she ran another lap, slapping hands with fans and taking an offered American flag, briskly holding it high.

“I didn’t expect there to be a lot of people. I thought, ‘who’s going to come out on a Sunday morning to watch a first-time event when a lot of the pundits thought a woman couldn’t even run that far,'” she said.

David Weatherbie remembers that at the Cape Elizabeth watch party, “pretty much everybody had tears coming down their eyes.”

Keith Weatherbie returned from his anxious walk in plenty 0f time to see Benoit finish off the final miles.

“I’d been so nervous the whole time, but she maintained the huge lead, and I was some happy to think that I had actually coached an Olympic champion,” Weatherbie said.

Joan Benoit waves an American flag after winning the Olympic women’s marathon on Aug. 5, 1984. Her victory cemented her status as a pioneer in women’s athletics. Associated Press photo

Waitz, a close friend of Samuelson’s, finished second. Mota placed third. She would win marathon gold in 1988 and the Boston Marathon three times (1987, 1988, 1990). Kristiansen was fourth. She would break Samuelson’s world record at the London Marathon in 1985 with a time of 2:21:06, but lost to Samuelson later that year in Chicago when Samuelson set an American record that would stand for 21 years – 2:21:21.

“It was Joanie’s day and it was sort of one of those breaking-the-glass ceiling days,” David Weatherbie said. “It proved women aren’t too fragile to run a marathon, which was a ridiculous notion, but that’s what a lot of people thought. That race that day just smashed through that glass ceiling.”

THE LEGACY of Samuelson’s gold medal run began to form before she finished the race.

As she entered the dark tunnel to enter the coliseum, with the crowd’s anticipatory cheers growing, Samuelson says she realized she would need to use her win in a positive way.

“I wanted to give back to a sport and community that had been so supportive of me,” she said. “I just think that I was so lucky to be able to get there after the knee issues, (and) a lot of people had been there for me and I wanted to be there for others.”

Eventually, that thought grew into the Beach to Beacon road race in her hometown. It also has led Samuelson, a private person by nature, to speak frequently about her own story in hopes of inspiring others.

“She cares a lot. She cares a lot about this sport and puts the time and energy into it,” said Durgin, who considers Samuelson both a friend and a mentor. “You can see that with the Beach to Beacon weekend, and it’s also what made her great. You aren’t going to be great without really putting your whole heart into it, and that’s what made her successful and still successful today.”

Reavis puts it this way when talking about Samuelson being the first Olympic marathon champion:

“Sports are a meritocracy. You can’t choose who gets to be your champion. The sport got real lucky when Joanie won that race.”

Forty years later, Joan Benoit’s gold medal run is still, “a heck of a story,” said David Wetherbie.

“I just think people fell in love with it. A 5-foot-2 woman from Maine decides she’s going to leave the rest of the world behind at 3-mile mark and wins the gold medal.”