Swiss duo add to their title tallies with hugely convincing marathon victories

Marcel Hug and Catherine Debrunner were a class apart as they both successfully defended their London Marathon wheelchair titles in convincing style on Sunday morning (April 27).

The Swiss duo are no strangers to victory in this event and Hug captured his fifth in a row (he has seven in total), Debrunner her third in four years, as they took advantage of the perfect conditions for wheelchair racing to assert their dominance.

Just six days after finishing first in the Boston Marathon for the eighth time, Hug surged away from the rest of the field to win in 1:25:25, Tokyo Marathon winner Tomoki Suzuki getting closest to him in 1:26:09, with Dutch athlete Jetze Plat completing the top three in 1:26:49. Hug is now closing in on the record tally of eight victories that belongs to David Weir, the Briton coming sixth on this occasion in 1:34:06. His compatriot Nathan Maguire completed the top ten, finishing in 1:34:17.

“It was a really tough race for me, it took me a while to get a rhythm and it also took me a while to shake off Tomoki,” said Hug. “It’s tough to race twice in six days, but I was feeling very good. I’m almost 40 and it’s getting tougher year on year.

“In 2023, I was in my very best shape, and I broke the course record then, I’m not quite there now, but I really enjoyed it and I’m very happy and very satisfied.”

Debrunner, a five-time Paralympic gold medallist last summer, was even more dominant as she broke the London course record 1:38:24 and narrowly missed her own world record of 1:34:16, sent in Berlin two years ago, clocking 1:34:18. That time would have put her joint 12th in the men’s race.

Her winning margin was an enormous 3:50, with American Boston champion Susannah Scaroni left a distant second in 1:38:08 and Manuela Schar 1:41:06. Britain’s Eden Rainbow-Cooper, last year’s Boston winner, was fourth in 1:44:49 while Paralympic gold medallist Sammi Kinghorn battled with technical issues to come seventh in 1:46:54.

With a little understatement, Debrunner said: “I’m a very good match with this course. There was a really strong men’s field ahead of me and they drew me along. I had to do some slalom to get ahead.”