Dec 14, 2017
Two time world record holder in the marathon, Boston Marathon 1973 winner, and instrumental in bringing women's distance events to the Olympics- Jaqi Hansen talks it all. That thing about the world you've been wanting to change, do what Jaqi did, throw years and will at it.
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12:54 You should never take anything for granted,
because a whole lot of people were responsible for giving you an
opportunity, so you should also not waste your God-given talent.
Yes, never take it for granted. Leave the world in a better
place.
1:02:50 I'm just going through as many of the top ranked
five and 10,000 meter runners from as many countries as I can get,
and we ended up with I think it was 70 women from almost 30
different countries. I have actual right to sue letters along with
the IRC introductory cover letter and our newsletter all translated
in 10 different languages through the Nike International department
mailed off and mailed back. I still got them in a binder. 10
different languages all around the world. Some of those women are
really putting a lot on the line. It took a lot of courage. They
don't live in as friendly environment as I am here in the U.S.
Maybe they don't enjoy the same rights. Maybe it was pretty
challenging for some of them to sign on the dotted line like that,
but they did. We had a case. They took us on, and they paid for
everything that Nike didn't pay for. Nike paid for our press
conference. Mind you, now, the Olympics are coming to Los Angeles
in 1984. We announced the lawsuit in the summer of '83, and we
maximized the audience by going to the first track and field world
championships in Helsinki in August of '83. We just kept getting
re-moved to court until we're up to appellate court, and we're
running out of time or we probably would have gone to the Supreme
Court, but we did not win in court, but you can lose a battle and
still win the war. I believe that is exactly what happened for us.
We now have the world's attention. They don't look good for not
adding these events. Within 30 days, they added the 10,000 before
1988. Not for '84, they're not going to let us control that.
They're going to show us who is in charge, so they postponed it.
They add the 5,000 two Olympics later.
1:13:30 I think what the women and men who are not doing
performance enhancing drugs, all they ask is a clean fair race. Is
that too much to ask for? I just don't know how they're going to
stay on top of it. I don't know how they're going to control it,
how they're going to legislate it. It just feels like athletes who
do cheat are always one step ahead of the drug testers, and the
drug testers are always being reactive, and instead of proactive,
and they don't know what's coming and what's down the line. What do
we test for next? How do we test for? How do we catch them? It just
seems like a constant battle.