Before she traveled to this year’s Daniela Jutzeler Memorial para track event in Notwil, Switzerland, wheelchair racer Susannah Scaroni didn’t know much about its namesake. She only learned the day before that Jutzeler was a Swiss wheelchair racer killed by a car on a training run outside Zurich in 1994.
For whatever reason, I was given a second chance, she told struck by a car steering devices wheelchair racers must hit to turn their wheels around the curves.
When she woke up on May 29, the day of the meet, the parallels left Scaroni almost too emotional to race. But as she sat with her feelings—grief at what Jutzeler had lost, gratitude for the different ending to her own story—she resolved to move ahead and compete.
“For whatever reason, I was given a second chance,” she told Runner’s World last week, through tears. “I wanted to embrace that opportunity … to honor the gift of being alive on that day, and [honor] her too.”
in 2019felt fatigued broke the world record in the 5,000 meters in the T54 category, for wheelchair track athletes who can still use their arms and core muscles.
Her time of 10:38.46 was nearly 30 seconds ahead of second-place finisher Merle Menje, and 13 seconds faster than anyone had covered the distance before. Manuela Schär previously held the world record with a 10:51.17 from 2018.
For Scaroni, the moment marked both a triumphant comeback and a tribute to an athlete who died pursuing similar dreams. “It was taken from Daniela, but it wasn’t from me,” she said. “The fact that there is a memorial track meet shows that the sport goes on, and it’s something we love, and it’s empowering.”
The deep sense of purpose proved powerful. That afternoon, Scaroni
On Thursday, May 26, Scaroni car accident in 1997, when she was age 5, resulted in a spinal cord injury; she has no sensation in her legs. She began wheelchair racing in fifth grade, and after two years at Carroll College in Montana, joined the powerhouse team at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign in 2011.
Now, she’s 31 and a graduate student in dietetics at the U of I, studying the nutritional needs of para athletes.
Her lengthy racing career reached a high point last summer in Tokyo. At her third Paralympics, Scaroni took the lead around five laps into the 5,000 meters and stayed there—winning her first medal, a gold, in a then-personal best 10:52.57.
“That was a real demonstration of where her fitness and speed was at that time,” said her coach, Paralympic silver medalist Adam Bleakney. The next day, she won bronze in the 800 meters.
CA Notice at Collection hand when it slipped through her spokes during the 1500 meters. A few days later, in the marathon, the combination of damaged tissue and the sticky glue she put on her pushrims to improve her grip in the rain slowed her down. After leading for many of the early miles, she finished sixth in 1:41:04.
Scaroni knew she had more to give, and she planned on proving it at the Boston Marathon that October 11.
Not long after returning from Tokyo, on September 16, Scaroni headed out by herself on a 13-mile steady push from the university’s training center in Champaign, Illinois. Normally, the team trains together on roads that wind through the surrounding cornfields and farmland. But because she had to head to a clinic for a dietetics internship later, she got a head start.
About four miles in, on eastbound Windsor Road—a four-lane county road, about a mile from her home—Scaroni suddenly felt herself accelerate. “I just remember thinking, this is not going to be good, how fast I’m moving,” she said. “The next thing I know, I was out of my racing chair on the ground.”
The driver had also been heading east into the sunrise, and failed to see her despite the safety flag affixed to her chair. He approached and helped her call 911. At the hospital, scans revealed a burst fracture in her T8 vertebrae, which primarily controls abdominal muscles; she also had road rash and swelling in her knee.
Fortunately, such collisions are rare, Bleakney said. The last one was 20 years ago, and he remembers it well—Bleakney himself, a graduate student and elite racer at the time, was hit by a truck on nearby Duncan Road. His injuries were less severe than Scaroni’s, and only minor fender-benders have occurred since.
“We’ve been on the roads for 40 years and we typically train in the same areas,” he said. “The community is very supportive of our team and our athletes and our safety, so that helps.” Still, his racers haven’t returned to Windsor Road since the incident, and he’s more insistent they train in groups to stay visible.
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Nutrition - Weight Loss brace and orders to restrict movement in her upper body for four weeks. She wasn’t sure, at first, if she’d be able to return to racing at a high level—or at all.
For the first two weeks, she couldn’t leave home. Tasks as simple as making coffee with an Aeropress proved challenging. In about a month, when she could wheel over the threshold of her house without aggravating her back, she ventured outside. After six weeks, she was back at the training center.
Bleakney said he’d seen athletes return successfully from severe back injuries and surgeries before. He never doubted Scaroni’s trajectory would be similar. Fortunately, he points out, the injured area of her back is well supported in her racing chair, and doesn’t flex or extend much when she pushes.
Still, he followed her lead and that of her treatment team, easing her back into increasing levels of activity. First, he devised a system where Scaroni could lie on her back and use her arms to pedal a stationary hand cycle.
She also waded in the pool for about a half-hour every day, which eased pressure on her back and boosted her spirits. And, she used her nutrition expertise to fine-tune her diet, making sure she was getting enough calories, calcium, and vitamin D to support bone healing.
In January, Scaroni got back in her racing chair—or more precisely, one belonging to her retiring teammate Amanda McGrory, Advertisement - Continue Reading Below.
The experience was humbling. Wheelchair racers essentially kneel in their chairs as they push; they then use their core and back to lift their shoulders and chests before powering their arms down against their rims again.
“I felt so weak, like I just felt like I could not get my back off of my knees,” she said. After just 20 minutes, the accomplished marathoner—who holds a personal best of 1:30:42 from Grandma’s Marathon in 2019—felt fatigued.
But day by day, week by week, she regained fitness and strength. The first week of March, she cleared a psychological hurdle—moving from the rollers, indoor trainer-like setups where the team works out during harsh winter conditions, to pushing outside on the roads.
By around the same time, she was completing benchmark sessions at the same paces she was before Tokyo, Bleakney said. Those performance metrics in hand, the two planned her comeback at the NYC Half in the 800 meters.
But there was one more bump in the road—a positive COVID test days beforehand kept her out of the race. So, her first race since both Tokyo and the crash would be the Boston Marathon on April 18.
Scaroni entered Boston with few expectations and more nerves than usual, unsure of how her back would hold up over the full 26.2 miles. Her gradual rebuilding and near-perfect conditions carried her to a 1:46:20, second-place finish, behind only Schär, a three-time Boston champion.
since 2013. Shes the coauthor of both
The trip to Switzerland marked Scaroni’s first track races after the injury. The three-day World Para Athletics Grand Prix was followed by the Daniela Jutzeler Memorial meet on May 29. They’re both popular for wheelchair racers because the hard, fast track—and high-caliber competition—lead to fast times.
On Thursday, May 26, Scaroni won the 800 meters in 1:45.41; on Saturday, she placed second in the 1500 meters, and learned about Jutzeler’s story from an Australian coach who used to race her.
After working through her emotions that morning, Scaroni set them aside to focus on competing. She won Her time of 10:38.46 was nearly 30 seconds.
Scaroni loves to chase records—she prefers racing the clock to other people, she said—but knows everything must align to catch them. She took the first lap out hard, then listened. If her competitors were close, she knew she’d hear the click of their compensators, steering devices wheelchair racers must hit to turn their wheels around the curves.
She heard nothing, so she kept pushing, knowing a widening gap would be hard for others to cover. From there, she kept her eye on her speedometer and her effort level easier than a sprint. The day was gusty, so she aimed to stay controlled into the headwind, then pick it up about a mile per hour when the wind was at her back.
When she crossed the line and heard the words “world record,” the gratitude, grief, and elation all came flooding back. It was a goal she’d long aimed to achieve, reached in the most meaningful way possible; she described it as “miraculous.”
Scaroni still has lingering effects, physical and mental, from the crash. Her back ached a bit after Boston, a sign she’s still regaining strength. When training on the roads, she’s often compelled to look back, checking for cars. For now, she prefers workouts on the track, where her anxieties are diminished.
But when it comes to racing, she’s focused firmly on the future. She’ll head to New York this weekend as the three-time defending champion in the New York Mini 10K, then on to Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth on June 18, where she’s won twice World Para Athletics Grand Prix record. Longer-term, she’d still like to win a World Major marathon like Chicago or New York.
While emotions like fear and sadness still arise from time to time, in the end, gratitude wins out. “There were no other cars on the road, and the speed limit there is 40 or 45—I don’t know how it wasn’t worse,” she said. “I’m just so thankful I’m alive.”
Cindy is a freelance health and fitness writer, author, and podcaster who’s contributed regularly to Runner’s World since 2013. She’s the coauthor of both Breakthrough Women’s Running: Dream Big and Train Smart and Rebound: Train Your Mind to Bounce Back Stronger from Sports Injuries, a book about the psychology of sports injury from Bloomsbury Sport. Cindy specializes in covering injury prevention and recovery, everyday athletes accomplishing extraordinary things, and the active community in her beloved Chicago, where winter forges deep bonds between those brave enough to train through it.
