Patriots legend Rob Gronkowski waits at the finish line for the 30,000 runners who will participate in Monday’s Boston Marathon.
All 50 US states (and nearly 130 countries) were represented in the 128th edition of the historic race, and around 500,000 fans were expected to line the streets of Boston.
The action began around 9 a.m. ET with the men’s and women’s wheelchair races before the elite racers hit the roads half an hour later.
Then, at 10 a.m. ET on Monday, the crowd of amateur runners began the 26.2-mile journey from Hopkinton to the finish line on Boylston Street.
Waiting at the end of the world’s oldest and most prestigious annual marathon was former NFL tight end Gronkowski. The 34-year-old spent nearly a decade in New England, winning three Super Bowls alongside Tom Brady with the Patriots.
Britain’s Eden Rainbow-Cooper crosses the finish line to win the women’s wheelchair race
Waiting at the end of the world’s oldest and most prestigious annual marathon was former NFL tight end Rob Gronkowski.
Around 500,000 fans are expected to line the streets of Boston for the historic race.
Former New England Patriots tight end Gronkowski named career ‘great quarterback’
Around 10 a.m. ET on Monday, the crowd of amateur runners began the 26.2-mile journey.
Gronkowski was named ‘grand marshal’ of the race, having won the 2024 Patriots Award. He was seen holding the trophy and throwing a football early Monday morning.
“We couldn’t ask for a better day,” he said, before hopping into an electric car that took him along the route. ‘The city of Boston always comes out to support, no matter the event. The weather is perfect, the energy is bursting.’
Security was tight in Boston, and this year’s race marked 11 years since the tragic bombing that killed three people and injured hundreds more.
The Patriots Day race also coincided with One Boston Day, when the city remembers the victims of the 2013 tragedy. At the finish line on Boylston Street, bagpipes accompanied Governor Maura Healey, Mayor of Boston, Michelle Wu, and members of the victims’ families as they laid a pair of wreaths at the sites of the explosions.
Sisay Lemma of Ethiopia secured the lead in the men’s race on Monday morning.
Swiss Marcel Hug achieved his sixth victory in the men’s wheelchair race, in record time
Yuma Morii of Japan pulls away from the rest during the men’s elite race in Boston
Swiss athlete Marcel Hug and English athlete Eden Rainbow Cooper hold a trophy after finishing first in the men’s and women’s professional wheelchair category
Sisay Lemma of Ethiopia leads the field during the 2024 Boston Marathon
In the opening action, Britain’s Eden Rainbow-Cooper won the women’s wheelchair race, while Switzerland’s Marcel Hug righted himself after hitting a barrier before taking a sixth victory in the men’s race, in record time. route.
Hug already had a four-minute lead at about 18 miles when he reached the historic firehouse curve in Newton. He collapsed over the fence and spun to the side, but quickly returned to the track.
He finished in 1 hour, 15 minutes and 33 seconds, breaking his previous record by 1:33 to win his 14th consecutive major marathon and 24th overall.
The festivities began around 6 a.m., when race director Dave McGillivray dismissed about 30 members of the Massachusetts National Guard.
The otherwise sleepy New England town of Hopkinton celebrated its centennial at the starting line, sending off a field of 17 former champions and nearly 30,000 other runners in its path.
Near the finish line on Boylston Street, officials observed the anniversary of the 2013 bombing that killed three people and injured hundreds more.
Elite runners leave the Boston Marathon starting line
The 34-year-old spent nearly a decade in New England, winning three Super Bowls alongside Tom Brady with the Patriots.
Three people were killed in 2013 and more than 260 were injured when two pressure cooker bombs exploded at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.
Police captured a bloodied and wounded Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in the Boston suburb of Watertown, where he was hiding in a boat parked in a backyard, hours after his brother’s death.
Three people were killed and more than 260 injured when two pressure cooker bombs exploded at the marathon finish line.
Among the dead were Lu Lingzi, a 23-year-old graduate student from China at Boston University; Krystle Campbell, a 29-year-old restaurant manager from Medford, Massachusetts; and Martin Richard, 8, who had gone to see the marathon with his family.
During a tense four-day chase that paralyzed the city, Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer Sean Collier was shot and killed in his car. Boston police officer Dennis Simmonds also died a year after being wounded in a confrontation with attackers.
Police captured a bloodied and wounded Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in the Boston suburb of Watertown, where he was hiding in a boat parked in a backyard, hours after his brother’s death.
Tsarnaev had been in a shootout with police and was run over by his brother while fleeing.
“I think we’re all still living in those tragic days 10 years ago,” Bill Evans, former Boston Police Commissioner, said recently.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sentenced to death and, in recent years, much of the attention has focused on his attempt to avoid being executed.