Boston Marathon Trivia
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56 free Boston Marathon trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Boston Marathon trivia quiz runs the whole course, from the 1897 race inspired by the Athens Olympics to the champions of the 2020s. The easy questions are ones any spectator on Marathon Monday could answer: the town where it starts, the street where it ends, the holiday it is run on, the hill near Boston College, and the college whose students form the Scream Tunnel. The harder end is for runners and race historians: the olive wreath that was once the only prize, why Bobbi Gibb had to run unregistered, the bib number Jock Semple tried to tear off Kathrine Switzer, how Rosie Ruiz was caught, why Geoffrey Mutai's 2:03:02 never counted as a world record, the astronaut who ran the race in orbit, the year the marathon became a military relay, the qualifying time for the 2026 race, and the wheelchair racer with ten titles. Clarence DeMar, Johnny Kelley, Tarzan Brown, Bill Rodgers, Uta Pippig, Meb Keflezighi and Des Linden get questions too. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries for the race, its organisers and its winners before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our marathon, New York City Marathon and Boston quizzes next.
30 of 56 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which town does the Boston Marathon start?
Hopkinton
Hopkinton has hosted the start since 1924, when the course was lengthened to meet the Olympic standard and the starting line had to move west from Ashland.
Q 02Where in Boston is the finish line?
Boylston Street
Boylston Street in the Back Bay hosts the finish line; runners reach it through the famous 'right on Hereford, left on Boylston' turns that close the course.
Q 03On which holiday is the Boston Marathon traditionally held?
Patriots' Day
Patriots' Day marks the 1775 battles of Lexington and Concord. Until 1969 the holiday fell on April 19; then it moved to the third Monday of April, the day Boston now calls Marathon Monday.
Q 04Where did the first Boston Marathon finish?
A running track
A running track: the 1897 race was part of the B.A.A.'s spring athletics meet, so the runners finished with a lap of the Irvington Oval, where the meet was being held.
Q 05Which event inspired the founding of the Boston race?
The 1896 Athens Olympics marathon
The 1896 Athens Olympics marathon, won by Spyridon Louis, so impressed B.A.A. team manager John Graham that the association, itself founded in 1887, organised its own marathon.
Q 06What distinction does Boston hold among the world's big road races?
Oldest annual marathon
Oldest annual marathon is Boston's distinction: it has been staged in some form every year since its founding, through both world wars and the Depression, with only a virtual edition in 2020.
Q 07Who won the first Boston Marathon, leading a field of just 15 runners?
John J. McDermott
John J. McDermott of New York took the lead on the Newton hills and, though he walked several times in the final miles, still won by almost seven minutes; he had won America's first marathon the previous autumn.
Q 08The Boston Marathon was lengthened in the 1920s to match the distance first run at which Olympics?
London
London 1908 produced the odd figure of 26 miles 385 yards, later adopted as the marathon standard; Boston, run over a shorter course since 1897, moved its start farther west in 1924 to conform.
Q 09Which insurer's sponsorship brought the Boston Marathon its first prize money in 1986?
John Hancock
John Hancock became principal sponsor and the cheques followed: 1986 winner Rob de Castella took home $60,000 and a Mercedes-Benz from a race that had never before paid its champions a cent.
Q 10Which town does the Boston Marathon pass through last before finishing in Boston?
Brookline
Brookline comes last of the eight cities and towns: runners touch Boston near mile 21, leave it again for more than two miles through Brookline, then return for the final mile and a half.
Q 11Near which school does Heartbreak Hill crest?
Boston College
Boston College stands where the climbing ends: after a largely downhill run from the start, the course turns upward through the four Newton hills, and Heartbreak, the last, tops out beside its campus.
Q 12Why do Boston Marathon runners dread the modest Heartbreak Hill?
Its late timing
Its late timing: Heartbreak Hill arrives around mile 20, just where a marathoner's stored glycogen tends to run out, the moment runners call hitting the wall, so even a gentle rise can feel like a mountain.
Q 13Whose friendly pat on a rival's shoulder in 1936 backfired and gave Heartbreak Hill its name?
John A. Kelley
Q 21Where had the 1980 impostor reportedly been spotted during her qualifying New York City Marathon?
On the subway
On the subway: freelance photographer Susan Morrow said she met the impostor riding the train during the 1979 New York City Marathon and walked with her to the finish area, where she was then recorded as a finisher.
Q 22Who had won seven Boston Marathons by 1930?
Clarence DeMar
Clarence DeMar won in 1911, then stepped back from racing after doctors warned him he was risking his health; he returned to win six more titles between 1922 and 1930, the last at age 41.
Q 23Which American outsprinted Dick Beardsley to win the 1982 Boston Marathon, the 'Duel in the Sun'?
Alberto Salazar
John A. Kelley, the 1935 champion, patted Ellison 'Tarzan' Brown on the shoulder as he passed him on the Newton hills; Brown rallied, retook the lead and won, breaking Kelley's heart, as a Boston reporter put it.
Q 14Whose students form the Scream Tunnel about half a mile before halfway?
Wellesley
Wellesley students are said to have started it at the first race in 1897, cheering a favourite Harvard runner; today their quarter-mile wall of noise, with high-fives and even kisses on offer, can be heard well before runners arrive.
Q 15Which woman hid near the start and ran the whole 1966 Boston Marathon, before women could enter?
Bobbi Gibb
Bobbi Gibb hid in the bushes near the start, slipped into the pack after the gun and finished in 3:21:40, ahead of most of the men; the B.A.A. later recognised her as its first women's champion.
Q 16Which official tried to rip Kathrine Switzer's number off during the 1967 race?
Jock Semple
Jock Semple grabbed Switzer by the shirt and went for her number until her boyfriend, a 235-pound hammer thrower, sent him flying with a cross-body block; she ran on to the finish.
Q 17What bib number did Kathrine Switzer wear in 1967, later the name of her non-profit?
261
261 was pinned on after she entered as 'K. V. Switzer'; fifty years later, at 70, she ran Boston wearing it again, and the B.A.A. then retired the number in her honour.
Q 18Who won the Boston Marathon's first official women's race, in 1972?
Nina Kuscsik
Nina Kuscsik won the first official women's race in 3:10:26, having lobbied the Amateur Athletic Union to lift its distance limit on women's racing.
Q 19Which impostor crossed the 1980 finish line first in the women's race and was disqualified?
Rosie Ruiz
Rosie Ruiz appeared in no race footage until the closing stretch, and officials concluded she had slipped in from the crowd near the finish; she was stripped of the title about a week later.
Q 20Which Canadian was declared the 1980 women's winner after the impostor was disqualified?
Jacqueline Gareau
Jacqueline Gareau of Quebec ran most of the race in front, only to see another woman cross the line first; a week later she was declared champion, her 2:34:28 a women's course record.
Alberto Salazar beat Beardsley in a sprint finish after a head-to-head duel, then collapsed and needed six litres of intravenous saline; both men had finished inside the old course record.
Q 24Rhode Island's Ellison 'Tarzan' Brown, a two-time Boston Marathon winner, belonged to which tribe?
Narragansett
Narragansett runner Ellison 'Tarzan' Brown won in 1936 with the late surge on the Newton hills that gave Heartbreak Hill its name, then won again in 1939.
Q 25Which American won four Boston Marathons between 1975 and 1980?
Bill Rodgers
Bill Rodgers had given up running after his student days, then came back and won Boston in 1975 in an American-record 2:09:55, the first of his four titles.
Q 26Which 1968 winner, then a Wesleyan student, later edited Runner's World?
Amby Burfoot
Amby Burfoot won as a Wesleyan senior and went on to edit Runner's World for decades; the college roommate he trained alongside later became a Boston champion several times over.
Q 27Which Maine runner won Boston in 1979 as a relative unknown, then took Olympic gold in 1984?
Joan Benoit
Joan Benoit won in 1979 as a little-known Bowdoin student. In 1984 she had knee surgery just 17 days before the US Olympic trials, won them anyway and then took the first women's Olympic marathon gold.
Q 28Which German woman won Boston in 1994, 1995 and 1996?
Uta Pippig
Uta Pippig, who had left East Germany in 1990, was ill and badly dehydrated in the 100th race in 1996 yet erased a 30-second deficit to win her third straight title; her 2:21:45 in 1994 was a course record.
Q 29Which Kenyan won Boston four times, including 2003 and 2006–2008?
Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot
Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot beat Cosmas Ndeti's 12-year-old course record by a single second in 2006; that autumn he won Chicago by sliding over the line as he slipped, hitting his head on the road.
Q 30Which Kenyan woman won Boston four times and Chicago twice?
Catherine Ndereba
Catherine Ndereba won Boston in 2000, 2001, 2004 and 2005; her 2:18:47 at Chicago in 2001 took the world record from Naoko Takahashi, who had set it in Berlin just a week before.