Tatyana McFadden has 11 Paralympic medals. She won the London, Chicago and New York Marathons. But of all of those accomplishments, she described her win in the women’s wheelchair race at the Boston Marathon on Monday with simple but powerful words.
“It was the best,” McFadden said.
As reported by For The Win, McFadden described her experience at the Boston Marathon, and all of her achievements this past year, on Tuesday.
“It’s been an incredible year,” she said. “Coming off the Sochi Paralympics and winning a silver medal and then hopping into my chair after one day’s rest to train for London, which was three weeks later, and then train for Boston. It’s been an absolute whirlwind. It’s been quite a journey. An emotional journey, but a fun journey.”
McFadden was actually losing to Wakako Tsuchida of Japan for much of this year’s marathon, but she was inspired by the crowd and was able to pull ahead and win her second Boston Marathon in a row.
“It was a pretty emotional stretch,” McFadden said. “The crowd was absolutely insane cheering my name and telling me to push faster. That made it a different marathon. It was literally the best marathon I’ve ever ran. The crowd support was unbelievable.”
McFadden ran for Team MR8, which honored 8-year-old Martin Richard, who was killed in last year’s bombing. She was able to meet the Richard family and spoke to Martin’s little sister Jane, who lost her left leg.
“She just had such a spark in her eye,” McFadden said. “Showing me how fast she could run, and telling me all the sports she plays and is going to play, and I told her to continue to do what you love to do because there’s nothing that you can’t do.”
Photo via Twitter/@CBSBoston
