Monday’s Boston Marathon arrives one decade after the terrorist bombing at the race’s finish line and subsequent manhunt that claimed the lives four victims and one of the two attackers.
The exact 10-year anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing occurred on Sunday, but reminders of the tragedy were visible throughout the 127th running of the event on Monday.
Beyond the traditional signs and memorials, law enforcement was seen using a robotic dog to check the area for bombs. It was trailed by photographers, capturing the peculiar site.
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 of the Guard members marching the course said they would be thinking about those who were killed, and their families. Staff Sgt. Brenda Santana, 30, of Saugus, Massachusetts, said she will likely cry at the finish.
A general view as a police officer patrols the finish line area at the 2023 Boston Marathon
A person cleans a logo near the finish line before the start of the 127th Boston Marathon
Workers clean the wet finish line during the 127th Boston Marathon in Boston on Monday
‘I think it’s going to be emotional, remembering the tragedy, the lives that were lost,’ she said. ‘I will keep them in my mind as I’m crossing the finish line.’
On Saturday, many marathon runners in their blue and yellow windbreakers and several former Boston Red Sox players came out to a ceremony near the finish line. Church bells rang and the Boston City Singers and Boston Pops performed ‘Amazing Grace’ and ‘America the Beautiful.’ Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, who was making her first run for City Council when the bombing happened, joined the somber procession along with Gov. Maura Healey. At each memorial site — marked with three stone pillars — they stood with the families in silence.
The annual Patriots Day race was coming to a close on April 16, 2013, when two backpack bombs exploded near the finish line on Boylston Street. The explosives were timed to go off more than four hours into the race – when the bulk of the runners were expected to be near the finish.
Three people were killed and more than 281 were injured as a result of the bombing.
Among the dead were 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.
On Monday, several of Richard’s childhood friends are planning to run the race in his memory.
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 he was wounded in a confrontation with the bombers.
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 died. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, had been in a gunfight with police and was run over by his brother as he fled.
‘I think we’re all still living with those tragic days 10 years ago,’ Bill Evans, the former Boston Police Commissioner, said recently.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sentenced to death, but is now fighting a legal battle to spare his life
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a golden gloves boxer before turning his attention to domestic terror
Martin Richard, 8, was killed in the 2013 bombing as he watched the race with his parents
Former Red Sox players Jonny Gomes, David Ortiz, and Jacoby Ellsbury at a recent ceremony
Ortiz famously gave an inspiring — albeit expiative-laden — speech in the bombing aftermath
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sentenced to death and much of the attention, in recent years, has been around his bid to avoid being executed.
A federal appeals court is considering Tsarnaev’s latest bid to avoid execution. A three-judge panel of the 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston heard arguments in January in the 29-year-old’s case, but has yet to issue a ruling.
The appeals court initially threw out Tsarnaev’s death sentence in 2020, saying the trial judge did not adequately screen jurors for potential biases. But the U.S. Supreme Court revived it last year.
The 1st Circuit is now weighing whether other issues that weren’t considered by the Supreme Court require the death sentence to be tossed a second time. Among other things, Tsarnaev says the trial judge wrongly denied his challenge of two jurors who defense attorneys say lied during jury selection questioning.
The bombing not only unified Boston — ‘Boston Strong’ became the city’s rallying cry — but inspired many in the running community and prompted scores of those impacted by the terror attack to run the marathon. At the memorial sites Saturday several flower pots with the words ‘Boston Strong’ held what have become known as Marathon daffodils.
‘It really galvanized and showed our sport’s and our city’s resiliency, our desire together to continue even better and to enhance the Boston Marathon,’ Boston Athletic Association President and CEO Jack Fleming said. ‘The bombing in 2013 resulted in a new appreciation or a different appreciation for what Boston, what the Boston Marathon, has always stood for, which is that expression of freedom that you receive and get while running.’
Police captured Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in Watertown, where he was hiding in a boat
A police tactical unit drives through the streets as they search for 19-year-old suspect
A police officer stops a car while the search for the bombing suspects continued in 2013
The fastest and most-decorated elite field ever to assemble in Hopkinton is getting ready to cross the start line for the 127th Boston Marathon on Monday.
The group includes world record holders, Olympic and Paralympic medalists, winners of major marathons 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 is making his Boston Marathon debut.
About 30,000 athletes will run 26.2 miles (42.2 kilometers) to Copley Square in Boston. A light drizzle has made for wet roads at the start and runners could be facing a headwind. The temperature is expected to be in the low 50s.
This year the race includes a new division for nonbinary athletes.
At 6am in Hopkinton, race director Dave McGillivray sent out a group of about 20 from the Massachusetts National Guard, which walks the course annually, announcing the start of the marathon. He thanked them for their service and wished them well on the course.
Race Director Dave McGillivray talks to a group from the Massachusetts National Guard
McGillivray said in an interview that on paper the field is the fastest, but Boston is all about strategy, not breaking a world record. It’s very different than other major marathon courses because of the topography, the undulating nature of the course, he added.
‘How you run it is as important, if not more important, than how fast you run it,’ he said. ‘Of course you need a fast time in order to win, but at the same time, you don’t necessarily want to take it out and try to run the whole race all by yourself. Some might. Who knows? We’ll see today.’
The wheelchair divisions were to start shortly after 9am, followed by the elite fields. Kipchoge set the record of 2 hours, 1 minute, 9 seconds in Berlin in 2019 and also broke 2 hours in an exhibition in a Vienna park that year. His personal best is almost 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 among Boston’s fastest. Amane Beriso of Ethiopia is one of three women to break 2:15:00.
A person walks past a memorial for those killed in the bombing at the Boston Marathon in 2013
***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk