Catherine Debrunner Is Running Away With the Women's Wheelchair Race — and Chasing Her Own Course Record

Some races are duels, like the men's wheelchair finish that opened marathon Sunday. The women's wheelchair race is a demonstration. Catherine Debrunner of Switzerland reached 35 kilometers in 1:21:23 on Sunday morning, leading five-time New York champion Tatyana McFadden by 7 minutes and 40 seconds, with defending champion Susannah Scaroni in third — and Debrunner is racing her own history as much as the field.

The numbers say how complete the performance has been. Debrunner led by two minutes at 10K, in 22:03. She passed halfway in 46:52. Her 30K split was 1:08:46, with the 5K before it covered in 10:44. At her current pace she projects to finish in about 1:38:07 — roughly 85 seconds faster than the course record of 1:39:32 that she set herself in 2023.

Behind her, the podium fight is its own race. McFadden, who has won this event five times, holds second; Scaroni, the two-time defending champion racing less than three months after giving birth to a baby boy in August, is third. That Scaroni is on the course at all was the morning's surprise — her return was unannounced until race week — and a podium finish would complete it.

Debrunner still has about seven kilometers to run as this file is stamped, through the Bronx and down Fifth Avenue to Central Park, and a record projection is not a record until the clock stops. This desk will file the finish — and whether 1:39:32 still stands — when she crosses.