New York City Marathon officials launched an investigation and could not find any sign of Ruiz near the finish line. On April 25, based on this and other evidence, the games committee of the New York City Marathon retroactively disqualified Ruiz from the 1979 race, with marathon director Fred Lebow saying she could not possibly have run the entire course. Later that week, the Boston Athletic Association (BAA) disqualified Ruiz from the Boston Marathon. While New York's action seemed to have automatically disqualified Ruiz from Boston as well, Boston officials wanted to do their own investigation before taking action. Gareau was declared the female winner, with a time of 2:34:28—at the time, the fastest recorded for a woman in the Boston Marathon. Lyons was moved up to second; her time of 2:35:08 was the fastest ever recorded for an American woman in a marathon at that juncture.