Michiko "Miki" Suwa Gorman was an American marathoner of Japanese ancestry. Gorman did not begin running competitively until she was in her mid 30s, but rapidly emerged as one of the elite marathoning women of the mid-1970s. She is the only woman to win both the Boston and New York City marathons twice and is the first of only two woman runners to win both marathons in the same year.
Biography
Michiko Suwa was born to Japanese parents in Qingdao, China, grew up in Japan's Fukushima Prefecture during the post-war years and moved to the United States in 1964. Shortly after she moved, she married Michael Gorman. At 5'0½" tall and 86 pounds, she took up running while in her early 30s to gain weight. In 1970, as her first event, Michiko ran an indoor 100 mile run in 21:04:00 in Los Angeles, California. Gorman set an unofficial world's best for the women's marathon of 2:46:36 at the Western Hemisphere Marathon on December 3, 1973, just four years after she started to run. Four months later, in April 1974, she won the Boston Marathon in a course record of 2:47:11. Gorman would also place second at Boston in 1976, and won Boston again in 1977. Gorman also won the New York City Marathon twice, in 1976 and 1977, at the age of 41 and 42 respectively. Until November 5, 2017, when the race was won by Shalane Flanagan, she had been the last American woman to win the New York City Marathon. She set a personal best during her 1976 victory with a time of 2:39:11, then the second fastest women's marathon in history and just a minute off the world record. Gorman participated in the 1977 World Masters Athletics Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden and again in 1979 when they were held in Hanover, West Germany. At Gothenburg, she easily won her masters division in the 1500 meters, 3000 meters, cross-country, and marathon competitions. In Hanover, at the age of 44, she won her division in the 5000 meters, 10000 meters, and marathon races. In 1978, Gorman set a women's world record in the half-marathon. Frequently injured in subsequent years, Gorman competed sporadically through the years 1978 to 1981. She decided to retire from competitive running in 1982. Gorman was inducted into both the Road Runners Club of AmericaHall of Fame and the USATF Masters Hall of Fame, as well as the National Distance Running Hall of Fame. In 1979, the Supersisters trading card set was produced and distributed; one of the cards featured Gorman's name and picture. In 1981, a film called "Ritoru Champion", starring Yoko Shimada and Chris Mitchum and documenting the events of Gorman's life, was released. Gorman died from cancer at the age of 80 in Bellingham, Washington.
