Gérard Côté

Gérard Côté at the finish of the 1940 Boston Marathon

Gérard Côté , CM , CQ (born July 27, 1913 in Saint-Barnabé-Sud , Québec , † June 13, 1993 in Saint-Hyacinthe , Québec) was a Canadian athlete who specialized in marathon running. He won the Boston Marathon four times .

biography

Côté first took part in a long distance race in 1931 and won the same year for the first time. He participated in marathons from 1935, where he stood out at the Yonkers Marathon with a good twelfth place. When he first participated in the prestigious Boston Marathon in 1936, he came in 23rd. However, he did not qualify for the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin . A fundraising campaign that should have allowed him to participate did not raise enough money. In the same year he achieved his first victory at the Chiclets Marathon in Montreal and thereby became Canadian champion.

In 1940, Côté won the Boston Marathon for the first time in a new record time. In the same year he also won the Yonkers Marathon and was the first French- Canadian to receive the Lou Marsh Trophy as Canada's Sportsman of the Year. He repeated his success in Boston in 1942, 1943 and 1948, and in Yonkers in 1943 and 1946. During the Second World War he worked for the Canadian Army as a physical education teacher.

With victories in Boston, Los Angeles and Hamilton , Côté was one of the favorites before the 1948 Summer Olympics in London . But cramps in the legs only allowed the disappointing 17th place. He also took part in the British Empire Games in Auckland in 1950 and in the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Vancouver in 1954 . In 1956, Côté ended his sports career. Until 1975 he organized an annual marathon in his home town of Saint-Hyacinthe.

Web links

• Gérard Côté ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .
• Gérard Côté in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )