Name Uta Pippig | Role Olympic athlete | |
 | ||
Uta pippig 1998
Uta Pippig (born 7 September 1965) is a retired German Long-distance runner, and the first woman to officially win the Boston Marathon three consecutive times (1994–1996). She also won the Berlin Marathon three times (1990, 1992 and 1995); the 1993 New York City Marathon; represented Germany at the Olympic Games in 1992 and 1996, and won a bronze medal at the 1991 World 15km Road Race Championship. Her marathon best of 2:21:45 set in Boston in 1994, made her the third-fastest female marathon runner in history at that time. She obtained American citizenship in 2004.
Contents
Nike - Uta Pippig
Career
The daughter of two physicians, Pippig was born in Leipzig and began running at the age of 13 while a citizen of the former East Germany. She finished 14th in the marathon at the 1987 World Championships. In university, she was a medical student at the Humboldt University Berlin where, after passing her final exams, she chose to re-focus her attention exclusively on running professionally. She left East Germany in 1990 before German reunification. She won the Eurocross meeting in Luxembourg that year.
Pippig's results on the track at 10,000 metres, include finishing sixth at the 1991 World Championships, seventh at the 1992 Olympic Games, and ninth at the 1993 World Championships. She also won a bronze medal at the 1991 World 15km Road Race Championship.
Pippig won the 1994 Boston Marathon in a lifetime best of 2:21:45, which at the time put her third on the world all-time list behind Ingrid Kristiansen and Joan Benoit. As of 2016, the time still ranks her second on the German all-time list behind Irina Mikitenko. Pippig won the 1996 Boston Marathon in the midst of ischemic colitis.This was incorrectly attributed to menstruation. Commentators on radio and TV were uncharacteristically tongue-tied. "Physical problems and diarrhea," said some commentators. Others stopped at the phrase "physical problems", or "stomach pain." Eileen McNamara's Boston Globe article that said she "bled all the way from Hopkinton to Boston" was subject to mass criticism. At the 1996 Olympic Games, she dropped out of the marathon after 22 miles, having led earlier in the race.
In 1998, an out-of-competition drug test found Pippig had an elevated ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone, and the German Athletics Federation attempted to ban her for two years. Pippig contested the finding on the grounds that her testosterone levels were normal, and that the elevated ratio was due to a low level of epitestosterone from a long battle with chronic bowel disease and other factors. This claim was supported by a variety of independent medical experts, and a German arbitration court ultimately dismissed the case.
In 2004, Pippig founded "Take the Magic Step" to provide health information and charitable support to individuals and to organizations that promote wellness and education. In 2005, she was named to the board of advisors of the MIT Agelab.