Her advocacy work continued as she took on a career as a television sports commentator, wrote three books, and then launched a second Avon women's series that ran from 1998 to 2004. In 1972, she created the Avon International Women's Running Circuit, a 400-event series in 27 countries that lobbied the International Olympic Committee to add a women's marathon to the 1984 Olympic Games.
Over the next few years, she pushed for women's inclusion in road racing. "By the end of the race, I knew I was going to work for change for women," she says. After race director Jock Semple tried to yank her off the course at mile two, photographs of the scuffle made headlines, and in an instant, Switzer became the poster girl for women's running. Switzer, pinned on number 261, and lined up at the start. Play icon The triangle icon that indicates to playīack in 1967, when women were outliers in the then-fringe sport of distance running, Switzer famously challenged the Boston Marathon's all-male tradition.
And if history is any indication, Switzer is just the woman for the job. The American women's running pioneer has a new mission: to bolster female participation in road races throughout the world. And female participants made up only eight to nine percent of the field in three big-city Spanish marathons. Worldwide statistics are hard to come by, but in Spain, for example, in 2013, women made up only 13 to 18 percent of the field in the country's three largest half-marathons (compared with 60 percent in the same distance in the United States). While women's running has made big strides, especially in parts of Europe and South America, racing remains largely a men's sport globally.
Outside of North America, however, the scene changes. Indeed, according to Running USA's State of the Sport report, 56 percent of all U.S. Stand among the throngs of runners at any race in the United States, and you'll be surrounded by women.
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