Ernst Van Dyk of South Africa Aiming for Tenth Boston Marathon Title in Push Rim Wheelchair Division
Wakako Tsuchida Seeking Fifth Consecutive Victory in Women’s Race. All-time great Jean Driscoll to be recognized throughout Race Weekend.
Posted Thursday, 14 April, 2011
Boston, MA – The Boston Athletic Association (B.A.A.) today announced that nine-time Boston Marathon Champion Ernst Van Dyk, of South Africa, will return to the 115th Boston Marathon, seeking an unprecedented tenth title. Victory on Patriots’ Day (Monday, April 18) would extend his record of most all-time Boston Marathon victories in any division. Wakako Tsuchida, of Japan, winner of four consecutive titles in the women’s wheelchair field, returns to compete for her fifth title.
Van Dyk has won in Boston in nine of the past ten years, including six consecutive victories from 2000-2006. His 2004 time of 1:18:27 is the world record. Challenging Van Dyk in the men’s field is last year’s runner-up Krige Schabort, of the USA [and formerly from South Africa], and 2007 champion Masazumi Soejima, of Japan. The field of more than 25 male competitors will vie for the olive wreath and a total prize purse of $60,000. In the women’s race, Tsuchida will be joined by last year’s fourth place finisher, Shirley Reilly of Arizona, and newcomers Emily McQueen and Anjali Forber-Pratt.
“Ernst Van Dyk has been synonymous with excellence at the Boston Marathon for a decade now, and he is unquestionably one of the race’s all-time greatest competitors,” said Tom Grilk, Executive Director of the B.A.A. “We welcome Ernst, Wakako and the entire wheelchair division, which has been an integral part of the event since Bob Hall’s pioneering effort in 1975.”
Another of the B.A.A.’s all-time greats is Jean Driscoll, an Indiana native who won the women’s wheelchair division eight times between 1990 and 2000. Driscoll will be a special guest of the B.A.A. this weekend, and the B.A.A. will recognize her accomplishments and contributions to the division.
Driscoll, Van Dyk and Tsuchida will be recognized at the B.A.A.’s Champions’ Breakfast on Saturday morning, and Tsuchida will be recognized along with Soejima at a special tribute to the Japanese champions of the Boston Marathon on Friday afternoon at a press conference in the Fairmont Copley Plaza hotel. For more information on the 115th Boston Marathon, please visit www.baa.org.
Established in 1887, the Boston Athletic Association is a non-profit organization with a mission of managing athletic events and promoting a healthy lifestyle through sports, especially running. Each year the Association manages a comprehensive schedule of youth-running events, distance running training programs, and large-scale races in the city of Boston. Most noteworthy is the Boston Marathon, the world's most prestigious and oldest continually run marathon. Since the inaugural race in 1897, the Boston Marathon has been the pinnacle for distance running worldwide, a position which was reinforced in 1986 with the help of principal sponsor John Hancock Financial. In 2006, the Boston Marathon joined the Bank of America Chicago Marathon, the Berlin Marathon, the Virgin London Marathon, and the ING New York City Marathon to form the World Marathon Majors.
