Gabriela Andersen-Scheiss
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Gabriela Andersen-Scheiss (born 1945) was a Swiss marathoner at the 1984 Summer Olympics. Though living in Idaho and working as a ski instructor at the time, Andersen-Scheiss represented Switzerland in the 1984 Los Angeles Games.
Fourteen minutes into the 1984 Olympic marathon, Joan Benoit began to pull away from the rest of the pack. She went on to win in a time of 2 hours, 24 minutes, and 52 seconds. Twenty minutes after Benoit finished, then 39-year-old Andersen-Scheiss staggered into the stadium. The L.A. Coliseum crowd looked on as she limped around the track in the race’s final 400 meters. Her right leg had for the most part seized and her left arm was dangling. While the effects of her heat exhaustion were plainly evident, trackside medics saw that she was perspiring, which meant that her body still had some disposable fluids and let her continue her march to the finish line. At the completion of this final lap – which took Andersen-Scheiss five minutes and 44 seconds – she fell across the finish line. Medical personnel tended to her immediately and, miraculously, she was released two hours later.
[edit] Sources
http://www.olympic.org/uk/athletes/profiles/bio_uk.asp?PAR_I_ID=30369
