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Kathrine Switzer
Switzer has run 35 marathons, won the 1974 New York City Marathon and in 1975 was ranked 6th in the world and 3rd in the USA in women's marathon. After a successful athletic career, she turned her attention to the creation of women's opportunities in sport, a sports marketing career, communication, and motivating others in both fitness and business.
As the then-Director of Sports and Public Relations, Switzer also was responsible for Avon's sponsorship of all the company's sports sponsorships when they reached a new height in the 1980s with over $9 million annual budget. At this time, the company was the title sponsor of Women's Championship Tennis, the developmental Avon Futures Tennis circuit, the World Figure Skating Championship, the Women's International Bowling Congress Championship and miscellaneous equestrian and track and field events in addition to the Avon International Running Circuit. These programs were mostly discontinued in 1986 and Switzer left Avon to pursue other business options through her own company, AtAlanta Sports Promotions, Inc. which she had established in 1982. A decade later, in 1997, in one of the more amazing turn-arounds in sports sponsorship, Avon decided to return to its sponsorship of women's running. With Switzer again at the helm as Program Director, the company rebuilt the program under the banner of Avon Running- Global Women's Circuit, with an aim of giving women around the world an accessible means of fitness and health through running and walking programs. The program was launched in 1997 in 15 countries with a starting budget of $5 million. However, in 2002, like many companies, Avon downsized its operations and sponsorships, including Avon Running. Avon's sponsorship of women's running today is limited to the global portion of Avon Running, which continues in nine countries. As president of AtAlanta Sports Promotions, Switzer continues to advise these various countries in a consulting capacity.
2004 saw the inauguration of the MORE Marathon, a women's only marathon event for women over 40, sponsored by MORE Magazine. Switzer, along with legendary marathoner Grete Waitz, served as a spokesperson for the ground-breaking event. As a communicator, Switzer works as a TV commentator, writer and public speaker. She has worked for all major networks and covered the Olympic, Commonwealth and Goodwill Games; World and National championships; Olympic Trials; 27 Boston, 19 Pittsburgh, 15 New York City, and 13 Los Angeles Marathons, as well as hundreds of local road races. In 1997 she won an Emmy Award for her commentary for Los Angeles.
Kathrine Switzer is also in demand as a personality, with compelling and inspirational stories to tell. She has been featured in publications around the world and on hundreds of radio and TV shows, including Oprah, Today, Good Morning America, Tonight, Nightline, HBO, NPR, BBC and CBC, and is often sought out for a visionary opinion on the future of women's sports or controversial issues. Kathrine Switzer is a dynamic and effective speaker. She is a woman who has pioneered an obscure activity into global movement, and has parlayed her success as an iconoclastic athlete also into successful corporate sports marketing and public relations careers with Avon, AMF Incorporated, and Bristol Myers. Whether business, sports or health, Switzer is sought after to speak to corporate, university, association and convention groups because she is a fit, authentic success herself, and conveys high energy in the following topic areas:
(Speaking references supplied on request). Switzer has also received numerous citations and awards for her efforts in advancing sports opportunities for women, including a New York State Regents Medal of Excellence and the Billie Jean King Award from the Women's Sports Foundation for her contribution to sports. She was named "Runner of the Decade" and one of four "Visionaries of the Century" by Runner's World magazine, and an Honor Fellow from the National Association of Girls and Women in Sports. In 1998 she was one of the five inaugural inductees into the National Distance Running Hall of Fame, and in 2000, the Road Runners Club of America honored her with the Fred Lebow Award for contribution to women's running. In 2003, she was awarded the prestigious Abebe Bikila Award by the New York Road Runners for her worldwide contributions to running and was inducted into the International Scholar-Athlete Hall of Fame. She is also in the Halls of Fame at Syracuse University, Lynchburg College, and the Road Runners Club of America. Switzer received both her BA (dual degree in journalism and English) and her MA (in Public Relations) from Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Public Communications. She is married to Dr. Roger Robinson, professor, author and noted age-group runner. The couple divide their time living in New York City and Wellington, New Zealand. Kathrine continues to run six miles a day. # # # Other Background Reference Links: (Note: Any external links open in a new window)
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Kathrine Switzer will always be best known as the woman who challenged the all-male tradition of the Boston Marathon and became the first woman to officially enter and run the event. Her entry created an uproar and worldwide notoriety when a race official tried to forcibly remove her from the competition. Three decades later, the incident continues to capture the public imagination and is, in part, the reason Switzer has dedicated her multi-faceted career to creating opportunities on all fronts for women.
Having been denied many athletic opportunities herself, Switzer's original goal of establishing opportunities in women's running first emerged in a big way when she created the Avon International Running Circuit for cosmetics giant Avon Products, Inc. over 20 years ago. This worldwide series of women's events and Switzer's tireless lobbying were instrumental in making the women's marathon an official event in the Olympic Games. The first women's Olympic marathon was 1984. The Avon program also revolutionized global social and cultural thinking as it opened the door for public acceptance of women's sports in many countries where few, if any, existed before. (In 2003, Switzer was awarded the Pioneer in Sport Management Award by the University of South Carolina's School of Sports and Entertainment Management for the creation of this innovative program.)
In 2002, RYKA, the women's performance athletic footwear company, launched Take Fitness to Heart, its own series of women's running and walking events, and named Switzer as Director of Women's Health and Fitness, where she served as a spokesperson and advisor for the company through 2003.
As a writer, Switzer is also widely recognized as an innovator and leader in women's fitness, health and longevity as well as running. For many years, she has motivated hundreds of thousands of women around the world to the starting line of fitness, using running or walking as a cost-effective and time efficient means for women to obtain heath, optimum weight and self-esteem. Her book, Running and Walking For Women over 40 ..the Road to Sanity and Vanity (St. Martin's Press) is a best seller in the Unite States and is published also in national versions in Germany, Hungary, New Zealand and Australia. Her articles have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Parade, Women's Today, Runners World, Running Times and other publications.
