By Ted McElhiney
Quad-City Times Building, Davenport (USA/Iowa)
This life-sized bronze depicts two champions of the "Quad-City Times Bix 7" race: Joan Benoit Samuelson and Bill Rogers. Joan won her first of four Bix championships in 1983. Except for 1984, when she was away winning the first women's Olympic marathon in history, she has returned to run the race every year since. In 1980, as the best road runner in the world, Bill Rogers brought national attention to the "Bix 7" and helped it explode in size. He won the race in 1980 and 1981, and has returned every year since. The statue is dedicated to the hundreds of thousands of people who have made the race a world-renowned event. It was presented in commemoration of the race's 25th anniversary, on July 31, 1999. This event is part of the annual Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Jazz Festival celebration.
The majority of the information found on this piece is credited to www.wiu.edu.
