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Seven years later Norway’s Grete Waitz became the first woman to break 2:30 in the marathon, running 2:27.32 in New York, a time that would have been good for second in the elite men’s race in Chicago that same day.

Instead she was running in the wake of pioneers such as Kathrine Switzer, Bobbi Gibb and Waitz.

Still, when Samuelson beat Waitz in Los Angeles, running in prime time during a race that was beamed to television viewers around the world, “that was the game-changer,” Switzer, the first woman to run Boston as an official competitor, told Mertens.

“It has deflated like a balloon,” said Austrian MEP Thomas Waitz after a recent visit to Brazil.

“If the agreement is not signed by the end of this year, the Commission will not move ahead pushing for it. They will do their best to keep it out of the election campaign,” said MEP Waitz.