Romanchuk the Rocket Man
Now and again, a sporting phenomenon bursts on to the international scene like a comet to leave his or her rivals a mite stupefied. Just ask the great wheelchair racer Marcel Hug, who reckons he has never seen anything quite like the dazzling emergence of young American Daniel Romanchuk.
The Swiss Olympic champion has learned the painful way about the prodigy Romanchuk, who could on Sunday achieve the remarkable feat of completing a grand slam of victories in the four major transatlantic city marathons by adding the Virgin Money London Marathon title to the Chicago, New York and Boston crowns he has annexed over the past six months.
Hug himself has previously held all four titles simultaneously but it took him years of hard work before he swept all before him in his stellar 2016 season, when he had just turned 30. He can hardly credit that Romanchuk is on the verge of achieving the slam at just 20 and having only been in the sport for four years.
“I think I’ve never seen such a great, talented athlete as him. There’s no one I can really compare him to,” said the admiring Hug, who was beaten in sprint finishes by the powerful young man from Baltimore in both Chicago and New York.
In Boston, though, less than a fortnight ago, Romanchuk took another giant leap forward with his dominating triumph, which left third-placed Hug, the four-time defending champion, five minutes adrift and saw him become the youngest-ever winner of the event.
“The danger for the rest of us is that he’s improving so quickly too. He looked better in Boston than the last time I raced him; and in the last year, he has improved by a huge amount,” said Hug.
“Physically, he is in great condition, especially with his very long arms. My arm span is 195cm (6ft 4in), his is more like 208. It’s definitely an advantage because when you push on the push-rim, you have more leverage and can go further with one push.
“But it is not just that; also, mentally he is very strong, even though he’s only young still.”
Ominously, for his older rivals too, this University of Illinois student, quite a humble, self-effacing figure, sounds as if he has no idea of the heights he could yet scale, after his amazing breakthrough in 2018, during which he also set world records at 800m and 5000m on the track.
“It would be an amazing experience to win London but I try not to look forward too much – it hasn’t happened yet,” said the man who finished third in London last year. “If you told me this this time last year that I’d have won all these events, it would be hard to believe.
“I don’t necessarily have any [ambitions]; I just want to progress in the sport and push myself to the limits.”
A talented all-round sportsman, Romanchuk, who was born with spina bifida, pays tribute to the Bennett Blazers adaptive sports programme in Baltimore, which gave him his start, like thousands of other young wheelchair athletes, including the great four-time London Marathon champion Tatyana McFadden, who is one of his training partners.
“Watching racers like her in the youth programme was inspiring; I’d look and think ‘I wonder if I could get there?’,” said Romanchuk. “It’s been amazing and very helpful to have such teammates along the way. Tatyana’s quite an inspirational figure.”
Romanchuk cuts a distinctive figure as he usually races in his spectacles, although he may use contact lenses depending on the weather. Also, his hands that propel his racing chair with huge power are so vast that his racing gloves are custom-made with the help of a 3D printer.
Yet even if they are now up against a phenomenon, the old guard of Hug and British legend David Weir are not ready to surrender the throne quite yet.
“Daniel is great, of course,” conceded Hug. “But we older guys believe in our skills too and maybe our advantage is that we have more experience.” They will need it against the rocket man.
