Lee’s Boston victory dedicated to his
father, and Koreans
Sabrina Yohannes for the IAAF
18 April 2001 - Family was part of the inspiration for both winners of the 2001 Boston marathon, albeit in different ways.
Repeat women’s champion Catherine Ndereba of Kenya found added strength in the presence of her husband, runner Anthony Maina, and her daughter Jane, who, just shy of her fourth birthday, accompanied her mother everywhere except the race course. “I thank my husband because he has been such a supportive person, and also my daughter Jane here,” said Ndereba, as Jane, sitting quietly in an adjacent chair at the next-day press conference, with her hair braided and ribboned, gently ran her hands up the sleeve of her mother’s elegant purple tailored jacket. “She’s so wonderful,” said Ndereba, 28. “It’s been such a great time to have her here for the first time in the U.S.”
The inspiration that led Korea’s Atlanta Olympic silver-medallist Bong-Ju Lee to the men’s title in Boston was an absence. “I suffered a tragic loss before this race. I lost my father and I was overcome with sorrow, but this was a scheduled event and an important race,” said Lee, 30, whose father, Hae-Ku, a farmer in the small village of Sung-guh Eup, passed away a month ago. “I also did this for him. I thought the best way to honor his memory was to do my best.”
Lee’s best traded a runner-up status at marathons like Atlanta and Rotterdam for a major victory and brought honor to more than his father’s name. “There was wide media coverage in South Korea,” said Lee, who received no less than ten phone calls from his country after the race. “I was happy to know everyone knew about the race and that everybody rejoiced.”
But the first reaction came from Koreans in Boston. “I was very happy to see Korean fans all along the marathon track, and many of them were holding Korean flags,” said Lee.
“My country is a small country and the economy is a little slow,” said Boston convenience store owner Yeoung Kim following the awards ceremony Monday night, where he headed after crying tears of joy while watching the marathon on TV in his store. “It’s a big win; he made a big one for the Koreans,” said Kim, who is also president of an area Korean society, members of which made their presence felt at the ceremony with sustained rousing applause and chants as Lee approached the stage and then accepted and kissed the trophy.
“I hope my winning the Boston marathon will help people there overcome the difficulties,” said the Seoul-based Lee, of his countrymen at home. The race-day celebrations in Boston continued with dinner at a Korean restaurant, where the athlete and his trip companions and the area residents joined in renditions of traditional Korean favorites as well as a modern song entitled “Naneun Halsoo Issuh,” or “I Can Do It.”
The Boston victory is an important addition to Lee’s 12-year resume that began with a first marathon when he was in college, having run other distances in high school. He has completed 26 marathons to date. “Having won the Boston marathon gives me a lot of strength – the strength I need to continue my career as a marathoner,” he said. Until his Fukuoka marathon 2:09:04 second-place finish in December provided mitigation, Lee’s morale had taken a blow after his 24th-place finish at the Sydney Olympics. “I felt if I didn’t pull myself through the crisis, it would be the end of my career, so I got myself together and trained for Fukuoka,” he said.
Lee has scored victories in some of the world’s lesser-profile marathons, including Fukuoka in 1996, but his first triumph in one of the world’s major marathons on Monday comes five years after his three-second margin of loss in Atlanta garnered international attention as the slimmest in Olympic history. “But I made a personal record in 1998 and again in 2000,” said Lee.
“The marathon is first of all a struggle with one’s personal record and I believe that it is important for a marathoner to try and challenge his personal record all the time.” Lee’s current best of 2:07:20, clocked in another second-place finish, in Tokyo last year, improved the Korean national record of 2:07:44 that he set in Rotterdam in 1998. He also holds the national half-marathon record of 1:01:04.
His next goal, however, is the world championships. “I have failed once at the world championships,” said Lee, who was 22nd in 1995. “I had been in excellent shape before it but the last 15 days, I didn’t feel so well.” His performance in Boston is sure to put him on the Korean team for the August world championships in Edmonton, said the manager of the two-athlete Samsung-sponsored team in Boston, Duk Ho Cho, who came confident Lee would deliver. “He is in good condition,” he said, but Lee will not rest on his laurels for long. “He will rest -- one week to ten days vacation – and after that he will start to train for the world championships,” said Cho.
“I would like to achieve a good result,” said Lee. “And for that purpose, I will prepare.”
