Marathon legend Grete Waitz dies
Published: 19/04/2011 at 09:31 PM


Norway's Grete Waitz (front left) challenges Portugal's Rosa Mota (front right) in the women's marathon at the 1988 Seoul Olympics

Norwegian race legend Grete Waitz, who won nine New York marathons and a world title, died of cancer on Tuesday, her Norwegian cancer foundation announced. She was 57.

"She died overnight in hospital," Helle Aanesen, the co-founder of the Active Against Cancer Foundation, told AFP of Norway's most famous long distance runner.

Waitz, whose maiden name was Andersen, had been undergoing treatment for cancer since 2005.

She won nine New York marathons between 1978 and 1988, more than any other athlete, male or female.

Her reputation was such in the Big Apple that a half-marathon named after her, the "Grete's Great Gallop", is held every year in Central Park.

"We will forever celebrate Grete in our hearts and as an inspiration and role model for women?s running," said Mary Wittenberg, president of the New York Road Runners club that organizes the New York Marathon.

"We are sad to lose a dear friend and our most decorated champion. Her strength and grace throughout her fight with cancer were incredible and when so many people would have crumbled she stood strong and positive."

Waitz became marathon world champion at the first athletics world championships in Helsinki in 1983 and won the silver medal at the Los Angeles Olympics the following year.

She also won the London marathon in 1983 and in 1986.

The head of the Norwegian athletics federation, Svein Arne Hansen, called her "the greatest Norwegian athlete of all times".

In a statement, he praised her "not only for her sports performances, but also as a model for womens' sport".

Waitz also broke the 3,000-metres world record twice, in 1975 and 1976, and won five cross-country world championships.

She also won a total of 33 Norwegian championships in all disciplines.

There was praise also from IAAF president Lamine Diack who called Waitz "one of the brightest flames of the modern athletics era".

"The dedication, perseverance and fortitude with which Grete carved out her athletics career on the track, across the country and on the road is an example to us all, as is the positive way she tackled the illness that beset her life in recent years," he said