by: Paul R. Benson
On April 15th, 2019, Daniel Romanchuk became the first American in 26 years and the youngest person, at 20-years old, to ever win the men’s Wheelchair division of the Boston Marathon! Daniel finished the 26.2-mile race in Boston at 1-hour 21-minutes and 36-seconds. He passed Japan’s two-time champion, Masazumi Soejima, at the 18-mile mark and kept pushing to the finish line. With his victories in the Chicago and New York Marathons last year, Romanchuk has now won all three Abbott majors in the U.S.
When asked about training for the Boston Marathon Romanchuk said, “The training for something like this, it goes back many… many years, I’d even say back to when I got involved in sports. So, I got involved in sports with the Bennett Blazers sports program out of Baltimore, Maryland. I did their multi sports program so, track and field, swimming, basketball, hockey, pretty much any sport you could imagine.” Romanchuk entered this program when he was 2 years old and started racing in the program at the age of 4. One philosophy he holds onto from the Bennett Blazers is “Teach kids they can before someone tells them they can’t.”
Romanchuk continued sharing his journey. “It was just about a little over 4 years ago. I was homeschooled and my mom and I were just coming home from some classes that I was doing, and she asked me, ‘hey do you want to try to make the Rio 2016 Paralympic games’. After giving it some thought I decided that I did want to go forward with it.”
It was this decision that set Romanchuk towards living in Illinois, “We [had] kind of known about the UofI program, which is an absolutely great program. Eventually we got put in contact with the head coach there, Adam Bleakney. He allowed me to come out and train and so I started to eventually move out here for training to try and make the Rio team.” Romanchuk was glad to have the opportunity to compete in the 2016 Rio games and he is planning to compete again in the 2020 Tokyo games.
When asked how he has time for school work Romanchuk said, “Back in high school I was homeschooled so I could take my school wherever I went. But, here at Parkland the professors have all been absolutely wonderful. Basically, I’ll tell them a week or so before I leave, ‘hey I’m gone for this period, is there anything scheduled’? And we’ll work together.” Romanchuk said about Parkland, “It’s a great place to get a lot of classes done. Professors have just been so accommodating with my schedule and other things. Here they really love to teach, and I think that’s sometimes a hard thing to find.”
“To me records were meant to be broken to progress the sport”
When asked how it felt to be the youngest person to win the Wheelchair division of the Boston Marathon, Romanchuk said, “I try not to think about those kinds of things. To me records were meant to be broken to progress the sport.” He was very humble, and I had to point out that not everyone can do what he’s done. In response Romanchuk said, “I could not have been able to do what I have done without family, friends, coaches, teammates, everyone along the way, and most of all I thank God for the opportunities that I have been presented with.”
When asked what it was like to race with previous Boston Marathon champions Romanchuk said, “Just to race with most of those guys. I mean, I grew up watching them on the world stage, and to be able to race with them, it’s just an incredible thing to be able to do.”
When asked what his future plans are, Romanchuk said, “This is the one thing I’ve learned about plans over the years is, they can fall apart. But the current plan is to continue and after the Tokyo games maybe transfer to the UofI.”
Romanchuk will be racing in the London Marathon on April 28th. Parkland wishes Daniel Romanchuk well and we will be rooting for him on his journey as an athlete.
