SYMBOL OF RESILIENCE

Runner in Iconic Boston Marathon Bombing Photo Dies at 89

The veteran marathon runner was photographed just after the bomb blast knocked him off his feet.

A runner who took center stage in perhaps the most famous photograph from the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013—and then got up and finished the race—has died at the age of 89. Bill Iffrig was touted by then-President Barack Obama as a symbol of national recovery after a photographer captured him knocked down to the ground by the first bomb blast that day. Iffrig, then 78, got right back up and finished the race, later telling MSNBC he’d thought to himself, “I’m going to get up and finish this thing.” The two homemade pressure-cooker bombs killed three people, injured more than 250, and shook the nation’s confidence. But Iffrig, Obama said, was proof that “we’ll pick ourselves up.” Iffrig died on Jan. 8 at a memory care facility in his home state of Washington.