Norwegian Running Champion Grete Waitz Dies

Grete Waitz, the Norwegian schoolteacher who won more New York City Marathons — nine — than anyone else, and whose humility and athleticism made her a singularly graceful champion and a role model for young runners, especially women, died Tuesday in Oslo. She was 57.

Her death was confirmed by Helle Aanesen, the manager of Aktiv Mot Kreft (Active Against Cancer), the foundation Waitz founded in 2007. In 2005, Waitz had received a diagnosis of cancer, although she never publicly revealed the specific kind. She lived in Oslo, and she and her husband, Jack, also had a home in Gainesville.

In 1991, Runner's World magazine named Waitz the female runner of the quarter-century, and she was arguably the pre-eminent female distance runner in history.

“She is our sport's towering legend,” said Mary Wittenberg, president of the New York Road Runners, the group that directs the marathon.

Waitz won five world cross-country titles. She twice set the world record at 3,000 meters, and she set world records at distances of 8 kilometers, 10 kilometers, 15 kilometers and 10 miles.

But it was in the marathon, the 26.2-mile race that has long been a symbol of human endurance, that Waitz most distinguished herself, setting a world record of 2 hours 32 minutes 30 seconds the first time she ran one, in New York in 1978, and subsequently lowering the world standard three more times.

Grete Waitz (whose name was pronounced GREH-tuh VITES) was not simply a champion, however; she was also something of a pioneer. At the time of her first New York victory, women's distance running was still a novelty. Just 938 out of 8,937 entrants in the 1978 New York marathon were women — in 2010, 16,253 of 45,350 entrants were.

In her home country, her New York victories conferred on her the status of a national hero; a statue of her stands outside Bislett Stadium, an international sports arena in Oslo, and her likeness appeared on a Norwegian postage stamp. She established a 5-kilometer race in Oslo that eventually expanded to 40,000 runners, and in 2007 she started her foundation, which sponsors runners in major races and supports cancer hospitals and patient centers.

“Every sport should have a true champion like Grete, a woman with such dignity and humanity and modesty,” said George Hirsch, the chairman of the New York Road Runners.

Grete Andersen was born in Oslo on Oct. 1, 1953. Her father, John, was a pharmacist; her mother, Reidun, worked in a grocery store. From an early age she would run with her two older brothers, Jan and Arild, in a nearby forest and later at a local track club. She met Jack Waitz, a local track coach and an accountant for a newspaper, through mutual friends.

She is survived by her brothers and her husband.