Switzerland's Marcel Hug moved one win short of Ernst van Dyk's all-time Boston wheelchair record on Monday, powering to a 1 hour, 16 minute and 6 second victory for his ninth title and fourth consecutive crown in Hopkinton. Hug's winning time, set with a helpful tailwind, was shy of his own course record of 1:15:33 but the margin over the field was crushing: American Daniel Romanchuk was six minutes and 38 seconds back in 1:22:44, with Dutch Paralympic champion Jetze Plat a further 89 seconds adrift in 1:24:13. For the 40-year-old Hug, who turned professional after the Sydney 2000 Paralympics, the sustained dominance now running into a third decade is beginning to feel historic even by his own extraordinary standards.
The race itself was effectively over inside five kilometres. Hug — racing in his new carbon-hulled Küschall chair for the first time in Boston — sprinted away from the start, opening a 13-second gap on Britain's David Weir by Mile 3 and extending it to 55 seconds at halfway. From the summit of Heartbreak Hill onward the Swiss was racing the clock alone, glancing occasionally over his shoulder more from habit than necessity. Romanchuk, silver medallist at Paris 2024, salvaged the podium's American interest with a gutsy second behind Plat's typically measured third; Weir faded to fifth after an early pace that proved unsustainable in the hills.
Hug now stands on nine Boston titles — one fewer than Ernst van Dyk's all-time mark of ten, set between 2001 and 2014. He has won in Boston every year since 2017 with the exception of 2020 (cancelled), 2021 (virtual), and 2022 (won by Romanchuk), and on current form another start in 2027 would bring him level with the South African legend. Asked afterwards whether van Dyk's record was now a direct target, Hug smiled and gave his customary deflecting answer: 'I race because I love it. The record will happen or it will not, and I am happy with either.' Those who have followed his career closely took that as a 'yes'.
The women's wheelchair race produced another repeat winner in Britain's Eden Rainbow-Cooper, who took her second Boston title in 1:30:51. The 24-year-old rider from Kent, who broke through by winning New York in November, pulled clear of American Susannah Scaroni (second, 1:32:14) and five-time Boston champion Tatyana McFadden (third, 1:34:08) on the Newton climbs and held the advantage all the way to Boylston. Her winning time was 94 seconds slower than Scaroni's course record but, like Hug, she was racing the opposition rather than the clock. The result confirms Rainbow-Cooper as the primary heir to McFadden's dominance of the women's marathon wheelchair circuit.
Both Hug and Rainbow-Cooper collect the standard $50,000 winner's cheque and the residual $25,000 that American Marathon Majors attaches to back-to-back wheelchair wins across the season. With Boston now banked, attention moves to London on Sunday, where Hug and Rainbow-Cooper will both start as favourites again on the fast Tower Bridge course, before the European summer season builds toward the September World Championships in Tokyo. For Boston the wheelchair pairing has now produced the same two champions in consecutive years — confirmation, if any were needed, that the field in Hopkinton remains the most competitive in the sport.