NEW YORK — Marcel Hug’s three-year streak as New York Marathon men’s wheelchair champion is over after Daniel Romanchuk won the race on Sunday.
The Swiss star, nicknamed the Silver Bullet, had won 16 straight marathons, including a gold medal at this year’s Paris Paralympics. He also won the Chicago Marathon a few weeks ago.
Susannah Scaroni won the women’s wheelchair race by blowing past the field. It was her second time winning, also taking the 2022 race.
It’s the first time in the history of the race that both the men’s and women’s wheelchair events were won by Americans.
Hug became the first para-racer to win the Abbott World Marathon Majors series title by coming first in all six marathons last year — Tokyo, Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago and New York.
The 38-year-old Hug was in the lead pack Sunday heading into Manhattan before falling off the pace. Romanchuk said a pothole on First Ave. caused some issues for some of the competitors.
It then became a three-man race between Romanchuk, David Weir and Tomoki Suzuki. The trio came into the last mile within a second of each other before Romanchuk, who also won this race in 2018 and 2019, pulled away to win in 1 hour, 36 minutes, 31 seconds.
“I know most of the other racers pretty well, really just try and completely empty the tank for the final mile,” Romanchuk said. “It’s amazing.”
Weir, who was runner up in 2021 as well as winning the title in 2010, finished 5 seconds behind. Suzuki was third at 1:36.43.
Hug finished fourth, 3:38 behind the winner.
Scaroni beat another American, Tatyana McFadden, winning the race by more than 10 minutes in 1:48.05.
“Always so special to be here in New York City,” Scaroni said. “I woke up feeling great today, never take it for granted. Coming up the last hill we had a tailwind today. So I had a little more energy then I normally do at that hill.”
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