OLYMPICS

Hell on Wheels

Wheelchair racers vs. the New York City Marathon

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by Laura Kaminker

The New York City Marathon is heralded as a "people’s race," an event for the masses, open to all. But for many years, wheelchair athletes have been prevented from participating in the race.

This year, for the first time, the New York City Marathon will include an official competitive wheelchair division. With this change, New York becomes the last city in the country to include wheelchair racing in its marathon. The new wheelchair division marks the conclusion of a decades-long struggle for inclusion and may (or may not) be the end of a history of discrimination against wheelchair racers. Here is the strange and fascinating story of how the wheelchair division was achieved.

Resistance

Wheelchair racers have been competing unofficially in the New York City Marathon for more than 20 years. Bob Hall, a pioneer road racer and sports-chair designer, was the first. In 1977, despite vigorous opposition from the New York City Road Runners Club, which organizes and sponsors the race, Hall won a court injunction to enter the New York City Marathon. The following year, Marty Ball, another racer, decided to give Hall some competition. Thinking that race officials would recognize his name from his previous attempts to gain official entry, Ball registered under the alias "Guillermo Jerez."

"It was very scary," Ball recalled. "I will never forget being at that starting line, hearing voices from the crowd: ‘No wheelchairs in this race!’ ‘Wheelchair, you don’t belong here!’ I fully believed someone might cause an incident just to prove themselves right."

Despite the unfriendly welcome – and two flat tires during the race – Ball finished the course and enjoyed the experience. In subsequent years, he, Hall, and other wheelers made their way into the field by calling the New York City mayor’s office, which would then instruct the Road Runners Club to issue them numbers. But, though individual racers found ways to compete in the marathon, no precedent for their inclusion was ever recognized.

The chief obstacle standing in the way of wheelchair athletes who wished to compete in the race was the New York City Marathon's long-time director, Fred Lebow. Lebow, who died in 1994, is credited with the marathon's fame and success. It was his idea to expand the race into all five boroughs (it was previously run in and around Central Park) and to open it to novices, instead of using qualifying standards. The race flourished under his direction and over the years he became a legitimate New York celebrity.

When people learned he had terminal brain cancer, he was widely regarded as a saintly figure in and around the city. Among elite wheelchair competitors, however, he was far less popular. Although Lebow had made his reputation by expanding popular access to and participation in the NYC Marathon, he was, for many years, steadfastly opposed to the inclusion of wheelchair racers in the event.

In a bitter and ongoing battle, Lebow, the popular public figure, was pitted against Hall, an unknown but persistent challenger. Both Hall and Ball vividly recall a closed-door meeting with Lebow, other Road Runners officials, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the New York State Division of Human Rights.

"The press was asked to leave the room," says Ball, "and then we saw who we were dealing with. Fred made comments like, ‘I’m not going to turn this race into a freak show’ and ‘I’ll be in hell before wheelchairs are part of this race’."

Next page: Safety first?

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