Which runner won the women’s marathon at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics?

Joan Benoit won the women’s marathon at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

Benoit finished in 2:24:52, becoming the first Olympic champion in the women’s marathon. She pulled away early in the race and held her lead despite strong challenges from Norway’s Grete Waitz and Portugal’s Rosa Mota.

Her victory was especially notable because she had undergone arthroscopic knee surgery just 17 days before the United States Olympic trials. The Los Angeles race began in Santa Monica and finished at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, linking the new women’s event to the host city’s major landmarks.

Benoit later won the 1985 Chicago Marathon and continued competing as Joan Benoit Samuelson. Waitz and Mota were also celebrated marathon champions, but Benoit was the inaugural Olympic winner because women’s marathon racing had only just been added to the Olympic program.