The media guide produced for the 2024 Bank of America Chicago Marathon probably sums it up best.
Each elite athlete in the race has a biography of sorts included, listing their marathon highlights and a carrying few paragraphs about their careers.
Marcel Hug’s opens thus: “The most dominant wheelchair racer of all time.”
It doesn’t get any more accurate than that. No ifs, no buts. Marcel Hug is the man.
He comes to Chicago this year aiming to complete a hat-trick of course-record-breaking performances in the city, fresh from his ninth title at the BMW-BERLIN MARATHON.
He has seven Boston titles and six New York City wins, six in London and a pair in Tokyo, plus two Paralympic marathon gold medals – among his seven Paralympic wins – and he is the world record holder.
He has won five of the last six Abbott World Marathon Majors titles and is aiming for his fourth in a row this year, with an almighty lead already as the final two scoring races approach.
He sits on 116 points from the five races that have taken place – four Majors and the Paralympic marathon – with Daniel Romanchuk back on 68 points in second place.
The American is the last man to have beaten Hug and it was on the streets of Chicago where that happened in 2021. Hug took revenge the very next day in that congested COVID-19 calendar that jammed Boston right up against the Windy City.
Romanchuk will be hoping to make any sort of headway into Hug’s advantage, but in the women’s race for this year’s AbbottWMM series title, it’s much tighter.
Catherine Debrunner stole the lead from Manuela Schär in Berlin to edge into first place by just five points, and the Swiss pair line up again this weekend.
Debrunner has raced more sparingly this year but when she has started a Major, she has had the advantage over her rivals, including at the Paralympics. She is not scheduled to appear in New York, so she knows that she needs to maximize her points haul here if she is to keep Schär from regaining the series title in the Big Apple.
Susannah Scaroni, a graduate of the nearby University of Illinois, will join Schär in attempting to keep Debrunner in their sights on this flat and fast course.
Just as they did in Berlin, Hug and Debrunner start as the benchmark for all others to reach if they hope to ensure next year’s media guide can tell a slightly different story.
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