(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Before winning the Chicago Marathon women’s wheelchair race in 2022, Susannah Scaroni told WBBM she felt lucky to be alive following a serious car accident during training in the fall of 2021.
“I was hit directly from behind by a vehicle and sustained three fractured vertebrae in my back, and for the next four months used a back brace all the time and was not really allowed to train,” she said.
Scaroni — who is one of many elite chair racers from the University of Illinois program — won her first Women’s Wheelchair Boston Marathon on Monday. It was one of the top rides of her comeback, with a time of 1:41:45, even though she had to stop during the race for a minor wheelchair repair.
Another University of Illinois racer, Dan Romunchuk, finished second in the 2023 Men’s Wheelchair Boston Marathon. He won the race in 2022.
One factor that has contributed to Romunchuk’s and Scaroni’s success: a process pioneered at the University of Illinois, in which 3D printers are used to make special gloves and other lightweight gear and parts for the program’s wheelchair athletes.
With wins in the most recent Boston, Chicago, and New York City marathons, Scaroni has now won three of the last four world marathon majors.
In the Boston Marathon’s able-bodied races, Kenyans Evans Chebet and Helen Obiri won, while American Scott Fauble finished seventh in the men's race. Another American, Emma Bates, was in the lead pack with only three miles to go before finishing fifth among the women.
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