Boston Marathon: Runners honor bombing victims at race’s 127th running

Monday’s Boston Marathon comes a decade after the terrorist bombing of the race’s finish line and subsequent manhunt that left four victims and one of the two attackers dead.

The exact 10th anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing occurred on Sunday, but reminders of the tragedy were visible during the event’s 127th running on Monday.

In addition to the traditional signs and memorials, law enforcement officers were seen using a robot dog to monitor the area for bombs. It was followed by photographers who captured the special place.

This year’s race includes members of the One Fund community – survivors of the 2013 attack, along with friends and family of the victims and those raising money for related causes.

Some members of the Guard who marched the course said they would think of those who died and their families. Staff Sergeant Brenda Santana, 30, of Saugus, Massachusetts, said she will likely cry at the finish line.

A person cleans a logo at the finish line before the start of the 127th Boston Marathon

Workers clean the wet finish line Monday during the 127th Boston Marathon in Boston

“I think it will be emotional, the memory of the tragedy, the lives that were lost,” she said. “I’ll keep them in mind as I cross the finish line.”

On Saturday, many marathon runners in their blue and yellow windbreakers and several former Boston Red Sox players showed up for a ceremony at the finish line. Church bells rang and the Boston City Singers and Boston Pops played “Amazing Grace” and “America the Beautiful.” Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, who was making her first run for city council when the bombing occurred, joined the somber procession along with Governor Maura Healey. At each memorial site – marked with three stone pillars – they stood silently by the families.

The annual Patriots Day race came to a close on April 16, 2013, when two backpack bombs exploded at the Boylston Street finish line. The explosives were timed to go off more than four hours into the race – when most of the runners were expected to be close to the finish line.

The bombing killed three people and injured more than 260.

The dead included Lu Lingzi, a 23-year-old Boston University graduate student from China; Krystle Campbell, a 29-year-old restaurant manager from Medford, Massachusetts; and 8-year-old Martin Richard, who had gone to watch the marathon with his family.

During a tense, four-day manhunt that paralyzed the city, Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer Sean Collier was shot dead in his car. Boston police officer Dennis Simmonds also died a year after being injured in a confrontation with the bombers.

Police captured a bloodied and injured Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in the Boston suburb of Watertown, where he hid in a boat parked in a backyard hours after his brother died. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was involved in a shootout with police and was run over by his brother as he fled.

“I think we’re all still living with those tragic days from 10 years ago,” former Boston Police Commissioner Bill Evans said recently.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sentenced to death, but is now fighting a legal battle to spare his life

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a golden-glove boxer before turning his attention to domestic terror

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sentenced to death and in recent years much attention has been paid to his attempt to avoid being executed.

A federal appeals court is considering Tsarnaev’s latest bid to avoid execution. A three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston heard arguments in January in the 29-year-old’s case but has not yet ruled.

The appeals court initially rejected Tsarnaev’s death sentence in 2020, alleging that the trial judge had not adequately screened jurors for possible bias. But the U.S. Supreme Court revived it last year.

The 1st Circuit is now considering whether other issues not considered by the Supreme Court would require the death sentence to be handed down a second time. Among other things, Tsarnaev says the trial judge wrongly rejected his challenge of two jurors who, according to defense lawyers, lied during the jury selection hearing.

The bombing not only united Boston – “Boston Strong” became the city’s rallying cry – but inspired many in the running community and led dozens of people affected by the terror attack to run the marathon. So-called Marathon daffodils were held at the memorial sites on Saturday in several flower pots with the words “Boston Strong.”

“It really ignited and showed the resilience of our sport and our city, our desire to go even better together and improve the Boston Marathon,” said Jack Fleming, president and CEO of the Boston Athletic Association. “The bombing in 2013 created a new appreciation or a different appreciation for what Boston, where the Boston Marathon has always stood for, which is that expression of freedom that you get and get when you run.”

The fastest and most decorated elite field to ever gather in Hopkinton is getting ready to cross the starting line for the 127th Boston Marathon on Monday.

The group includes world record holders, Olympic and Paralympic medalists, major marathon winners from 27 countries and a dozen Boston Marathon champions, according to the Boston Athletic Association, which administers the prestigious race. World record holder Eliud Kipchoge makes his Boston Marathon debut.

About 30,000 athletes will run 26.2 miles (42.2 kilometers) to Boston’s Copley Square. A light drizzle made for wet roads at the start and runners could face a headwind. The temperature is expected to be around 50 degrees.

This year the race includes a new division for non-binary athletes.

At 6 a.m. in Hopkinton, race director Dave McGillivray sent a group of about 20 men from the Massachusetts National Guard, who runs the course annually, to announce the start of the marathon. He thanked them for their efforts and wished them every success on the track.

McGillivray said in an interview that the field is the fastest on paper, but Boston is all about strategy, not breaking a world record. It’s very different from other major marathon courses because of the topography, the undulating nature of the course, he added.

“How you run it is just as important, if not more important, than how fast you run it,” he said. “Of course you need a fast time to win, but at the same time you don’t necessarily want to take it out and try to run the whole race on your own. Some maybe. Who knows? We’ll see today.’

Shortly after 9 a.m., the wheelchair divisions would start, followed by the elite fields. Kipchoge set the record of 2 hours, 1 minute and 9 seconds in Berlin in 2019 and also broke 2 hours at an exhibition in a park in Vienna that year. His personal best is nearly 2 minutes better than the next fastest runners in the field, defending champion Evans Chebet, also of Kenya, and Gabriel Geay of Tanzania.

The women’s field is also one of Boston’s fastest. Amane Beriso from Ethiopia is one of three women to break 2:15:00.