Allison Roe


Allison Pamela Roe is a New Zealand politician and former long-distance athlete.

Athletics career

Roe was born in Auckland in 1956. In 1981, she won both the Boston Marathon and New York City Marathon, becoming the second of only two women to accomplish the feat in the same year. In Boston, she ran 2:26:46 to improve the course record by almost eight minutes, set the previous year by Jacqueline Gareau. In New York, she set a worlds best woman marathon time with 2:25:29, to break Grete Waitz's time of 2:25:42 from the 1980 New York Marathon. However, after re-measurement, the 1981 course was found to be 150 metres short, though Waitz's 1980 record is also disputed. Also in 1981, she set a 20 km world record in Miyazaki, Japan.

Political career

At the 2013 Auckland elections, Roe was elected to the Waitemata District Health Board and the Devonport-Takapuna Local Board. In the 2016 elections, Roe joined the Rodney First ticket and stood for re-election for the Health Board and election to the Rodney Local Board. She was successful in both contests with the second most popular and most popular votes respectively.

Achievements