Badly injured in a crash just last year, Susannah Scaroni put together a remarkable race on Sunday as she captured her first title in the Bank of America Chicago Marathon’s women’s wheelchair division.
Scaroni defeated reigning champion Tatyana McFadden by nearly four minutes on Sunday, completing an incredible comeback story that started last year in Champaign when she was injured during a training run.
“It truly gave me a new perspective,” she said following Sunday’s race. “I have a new appreciation to be alive, and so I think about that constantly now, and everything’s a celebration and an opportunity.”
Last September, just two weeks after returning from the Tokyo Paralympics, Scaroni was on a training run at the University of Illinois when she was struck by a car.
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The force of the impact caused a “burst fracture” in her T8 vertebrae, leaving her in a brace for four months, and completely destroyed her racing chair.
As she slowly began to recuperate from the crash, Scaroni got an assist from three-time Chicago Marathon champion Amanda McGrory, who retired from the sport last year and helped to arrange for her racing chair and set-up to be given to Scaroni so she could get back on the streets.
“Susannah is the perfect person for it,” she said. “I have never met another athlete who is so intrinsically motivated to do her best every day. It actually made it very difficult to train with her when we were teammates because she wants to go fast, every day, constantly.”
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Now, Scaroni is a Chicago Marathon champion, and she’s looking to soak in the magnitude of her accomplishment.
“It feels like such an honor,” she said.
