However, suspicions mounted about Ruiz almost from the beginning. Her time would have been the fastest female time in Boston Marathon history as well as the third-fastest female time ever recorded in any marathon. On April 21, 1980, Ruiz appeared to win the Boston Marathon's female category with a time of 2:31:56.

Īfter the 1980 Boston Marathon, New York City Marathon officials investigated Ruiz's run and concluded that she cheated and did not run the entire course, so on April 25, 1980, she was retroactively disqualified from the race. Ruiz's application for the NYC marathon arrived after the cut-off date for the race, but she received special dispensation from the New York Road Runners due to her claim that she was dying of brain cancer. In 1979, she qualified for the New York City Marathon and was credited with a time of 2:56:29, the 11th woman overall-enough for her to qualify for the Boston Marathon. She moved to New York City in the 1970s, eventually finding work with Metal Traders, a commodities firm.

She graduated with a degree in music in 1977. In 1972, she graduated from South Broward High School and then attended Wayne State College in Nebraska.

After immigrating to the United States, Ruiz was separated from her mother and lived with aunts, uncles, and cousins in Hollywood, Florida. Ruiz was born in Havana, Cuba, and moved to Memphis, Florida with her family in 1962 when she was eight years old. She is believed to have jumped onto the course about a half-mile before the finish. Vivas ( née Ruiz J– July 8, 2019) was a Cuban-American fraudster who (among other schemes) was declared the winner in the female category for the 84th Boston Marathon in 1980, only to have her title stripped eight days after the race when it was discovered that she had cheated and did not run the entire course.

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