Uta Pippig

Who is Uta Pippig?

Uta Pippig is a female long-distance runner, and the first woman to officially win the Boston Marathon three consecutive times. She also won the Berlin Marathon three times, the New York City Marathon once, and she represented Germany in the 1992 and 1996 Olympics. Her best times include 15:03 for 5000 meters, 31:21 for 10,000 meters, 67:58 for the half marathon and 2:21:45 for the marathon. Pippig obtained American citizenship in 2004, and now holds an American passport. In 2004, Pippig founded Take The Magic Step to provide health information and charitable support to individuals and to organizations that promote wellness and education. In 2005, she was named to the Board of Advisors of the MIT AgeLab.

The daughter of two physicians, Pippig began running at the age of 13 while a citizen of the former East Germany. In university, she was a medical student at the Humboldt University Berlin where, after passing her final exams, she chose to re-focus her attention exclusively on running professionally. She left East Germany in 1990 before German reunification. She won the Eurocross meeting in Luxembourg that year.