Susannah Scaroni won her first Bank of America Chicago Marathon, and her quest for glory got an assist from a three-time event champion after a horrific crash destroyed her gear last year.
Scaroni, who trains at the University of Illinois, was on a training run just two weeks after the Tokyo Paralympic Games last year when she was struck by a vehicle in Champaign.
The force of the impact not only caused a “burst fracture” to her T8 vertebrae, but also completely destroyed her racing chair.
And that’s where three-time Chicago Marathon champion Amanda McGrory came in.
During Sunday’s broadcast, McGrory revealed that when she retired from competitive racing last year, there was only one person who should get her racing gear: Scaroni.
“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.”
Scaroni, who finished third in the 2018 Chicago Marathon, had to deal with more than just the loss of her equipment on the way to this race. Her first attempt at a comeback from the crash took place at the New York City Half Marathon, but she was forced to withdraw after contracting COVID-19, according to Yahoo.
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Now, she's a marathon champion for the first time in her career, and McGrory was cheering her on all the way.
“I am so happy seeing my equipment go to a good home,” she said.
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