TORONTO — Legendary long-distance runner Jerome Drayton, who won the Boston Marathon in 1977 and held the Canadian men's marathon record for 43 years, has died. He was 80.
Drayton died unexpectedly on Monday in Toronto, according to Cardinal Funeral Homes. Runners World magazine said he died during knee surgery.
Drayton, inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 1978, held 12 national titles and set 13 records across various distances.
Born Peter Buniak on Jan. 10, 1945, to Ukrainian parents in Kolbermoore, Germany, he came to Canada with his mother in 1956.
In 1969, he officially changed his name to Jerome Peter Drayton, wanting to cut ties with his youth in Germany. He reportedly settled on Jerome Drayton after going through a phone book and a book of names.
"I always liked the name Jerome," he said in an interview. “I picked Drayton from about 20 others …. I tried putting Jerome with all the others and Drayton seemed to fit best."
Drayton said he took up running in high school.
“I think I may have tried to impress a girl, try to win her away from somebody else,” he said. “That didn’t work but I sort of figured at least I got an 18-year athletic career out of it. I loved the winning and I loved the running part.”
Drayton excelled at shorter distances before eventually taking on the marathon, running his first in Detroit with the goal of making the Canadian team for the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City."
Drayton slowed down over the last few kilometres but still met the Olympic standard by three seconds.
“Trying to explain the agony of a first marathon is like trying to explain colour to someone who is born blind,” he said.
He turned heads in 1969 by winning the Motor City Marathon in a North American record time. Later that year, he won the Fukuoka Marathon in Japan with another North American record, prompting Track and Field News to rank him as the best marathon runner in the world.
In 1970, he recorded a world record on the track in the men’s 10-mile with a time of 46 minutes 37.6 seconds.
Drayton set the Canadian marathon record of two hours 10 minutes nine seconds in Fukuoka in December 1975. The record stood until 2018 when Cam Levins was clocked in 2:09:25 in the Toronto Waterfront Marathon.
“I think it’s about time the record was (broken),” Drayton said at the time. “I think it should have (happened) about 30 or 40 years ago but then I guess the quality of marathon runners wasn’t that great in those years.”
In 1976, fighting a cold, Drayton finished sixth in the Olympic marathon. One year later, he became the first Canadian in 29 years to win the Boston Marathon.
Then 32, he left American record holder Bill Rodgers at the 16-mile mark, eventually winning by almost a minute in 2:14:46.
But he was anything but happy after the 26‐mile 385‐yard (42.195-kilometre) race.
"Drayton was hardly the typical, exhausted champion basking in afterglow," the New York Times reported at the time. "Instead, he blamed a congested start, the absence of watering tables on the course and the lack of more competition for stripping much of the satisfaction from what he casually described as 'almost like a Sunday run back home.'"
A self-described "private person," the five‐foot‐nine, 124‐pound runner added to his mystery by wearing sunglasses during races — a practice he explained away by saying he was sensitive to sunlight.
In 1978, he won a silver medal at the Commonwealth Games.
Drayton won the Fukuoka marathon three times (1969, '75 and '76) in an era when the Japan race was considered the unofficial world championship.
“Boston, in my years, it wasn’t really that high quality,” he said in 2018. “There were only two or three runners that I’d have to worry about in terms of competition. But in Japan, it was usually anywhere from up to about 20 including the Japanese. It was very high quality in those days.”
He won there in 1975 despite a shoe malfunction, eventually catching the leader with a half-mile to go. He said his foot was stiff for “about a week” afterwards.
During his running career, Drayton was an avid reader, looking to learn wherever he could,
“Anything to do with health and fitness — I would read and make notes for myself,” he said. “Anything to do with training. If there was something new, then I would build it into my training program. You have to get to know your own body. It’s not enough to just know the body in general. As it related to running and nutrition, you eventually have to get to know yourself what your needs are.”
Drayton juggled a full-time work schedule with his training, logging up to 300 kilometres some weeks.
“An athletic career was considered to be a serious hobby instead of a profession,” he said.
After retiring, Drayton remained involved in the athletic world as a consultant with the Sports and Fitness Division of Ontario's Ministry of Youth, Culture and Recreation.
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 12, 2025
The Canadian Press