Roberto, Boston 1973: The chance encounter that created a Spiridonian

You don't always choose running. Sometimes, it spots you, on the sidewalk, without warning.

In April 1973, Roberto De Munari was visiting the United States to see some Genevan friends living in California. His travels took him through Boston. On April 19, he decided to visit the Prudential Center. By late morning, an unusual crowd had gathered in front of the building. A special edition of the Boston Globe was circulating, listing the names and bib numbers of race participants. Roberto realized it was a running competition, though he didn't know the exact distance. Curious, he waited, spotted two German names in the newspaper, and then watched about twenty runners go by—that day, the victory went to an American.

Then he went on his way. Nothing, at the time, suggested that this chance encounter with the Boston Marathon would, years later, be told as the starting point of a story about the French-speaking Swiss free-running movement.

A typesetter and a subscription magazine

It wasn't Boston, then, that launched Roberto into running. His first race dated back to childhood, in his native Italian village, during an improvised game around a city block. It would take a fellow typesetter, Jean-Daniel Durussel, for him to take it up seriously again, years later, in the streets of the Bout du Monde district in Geneva.

His first competition was held in Morat-Fribourg, like so many other runners from French-speaking Switzerland of that generation. As for his first marathon, he ran it in Biel. He would go on to finish five more, all in under three hours, with a personal best of 2:56 in Neuf-Brisach. It was also Durussel, a long-time subscriber, who introduced him to the magazine Spiridon.

From the Trans-Siberian to Nazaré, a travel companion

Roberto was not just an avid runner: he was also a guide. In July 1974, long before the fall of the Berlin Wall, he took two friends from Geneva aboard the Trans-Siberian for a seventeen-day journey to Japan. Later, it was he who trained his comrades for the Juracime, the famous stage race in the Bernese Jura—and above all for Nazaré, that Portuguese fishing village he loved so much that he would return some thirty times, each time bringing new groups of Swiss runners to discover the Portugal of Fernando Pessoa, one of his favorite writers.

The volunteer who didn't know how to say no

From 1975 on, Roberto De Munari became a pillar of the historic Spiridon, the magazine founded by Noël Tamini. Initially an author of running narratives—always keeping an eye on what could be improved, right down to the rankings handed out to participants later—he became an editor, then for nearly forty years an indefatigable proofreader and copy editor for the magazine.

Noël Tamini, who owes him half a century of friendship, describes a man without a television or radio, whose small apartment on the Rue du Village-Suisse was overflowing with books found at the Plainpalais flea market—and whose door remained open whenever a runner passed through Geneva. "That is how," wrote Tamini, "over the years, I understood that I had in him the older brother I never had."

Loyalty to the end

After turning 75, Roberto continued to go for a one-hour run along the banks of the Rhône every morning, at 7:30 sharp. Then came the time for canes, then the walker—without him ever giving up stopping in front of a newspaper stand along the way, to hunt down one last typo.

Roberto De Munari passed away in October 2019. His funeral brought together his runner friends on October 11 at the Cimetière des Rois in Geneva. Those who knew him describe him as a person of integrity, generous, attentive to others, humble, and of perfect honesty. Simply a friend.

That is the whole spirit of Spiridon: performance is only one part of the story. The other part, more silent, is played out in the thankless tasks performed by those who love a community enough to give it their time without ever demanding the spotlight. Fifty years after crossing paths with the Boston Marathon by chance, Roberto De Munari's name remains tied to that of the magazine he served tirelessly.

Source: Testimony of Roberto De Munari and tribute by Noël Tamini, archives of the magazine Spiridon (mmmille-pattes no. 133, March 2018).

Franck Tuil - Author - Running culture specialist