Like many runners in this year’s New York City Marathon, Nicole Ver Kuilen has a goal. She wants to beat her best time and finish the race in less than four hours.
It’s not inconceivable: In a marathon this year in Eugene, Oregon, she finished just 1 minute, 59 seconds from the goal. And in New York, she will have the help of a longtime friend, Paralympian Dani Aravich, who will be her support runner – an accommodation for athletes with visual or lower limb impairments.
Unlike the vast majority of runners, Ms. Ver Kuilen will run the marathon with a prosthesis. And for the first time in New York City Marathon history, athletes with disabilities in one of World Para Athletics’ five categories – low vision and blindness, intellectual and developmental disabilities, coordination difficulties, lower limb disability and upper limb disability – will compete for podium spots.
Although no cash prizes are offered in the Para categories, the New York Road Runners will award first, second and third place in each category for men and women.
Following other major marathons such as those in Boston and Chicago, the Road Runners decided to introduce these Para Athletic categories.
“We have continued to evolve our offerings over the years, and this pilot represents another important step in that evolution,” Erica Edwards-O’Neal, chief diversity officer at New York Road Runners, said in an email. “We want to go beyond access to participation and create more meaningful opportunities for athletes with disabilities to compete against others with similar disabilities, be recognized for their achievements and see themselves represented in one of the most iconic races in the world.”
Wheelchair racers have had competitive divisions since 2000, with prize money added for the category the following year.
Ms Aravich, a three-time summer and winter Paralympian, said she welcomed the inclusion of para-athletic categories in this year’s marathon. “I think maybe the race organizers or sponsors didn’t see the need to invest in this race because they weren’t seeing a lot of people at the start line,” she said. But, she added, a lot of that is because athletes with disabilities don’t feel welcome.
“A lot of times I show up to races just competing against myself,” said Ms. Ver Kuilen, who regularly competes in trail races and is the 2019 U.S. paratriathlon champion. She will run her seventh marathon despite a painful skin condition that has prevented her from wearing her prosthesis. But the opportunity to compete with her peers, and do so alongside her friend, was too good to pass up, she said.
Ms. Aravich will wear different prosthetics that Ms. Ver Kuilen can swap out as the race changes altitude and will generally act as a buffer against the crowds.
As para-athletes prepare for the 2028 Los Angeles Paralympics, the inclusion of categories in major marathons can be seen as part of efforts to expand access.
Ms. Ver Kuilen and Ms. Aravich, who lead the nonprofit So Every BODY Can Move’s campaign for disability rights, work as advocates for disabled athletes, recently appearing together in a short documentary that highlights how many insurance companies don’t cover sports prosthetics. Ms Aravich advises sporting events to become more inclusive, advising organizers on simple measures such as drop-down menus on registration forms allowing athletes to indicate their disability and accessible toilets.
Ms Edwards-O’Neal said New York Road Runners organizers hoped to make para-athlete podiums the norm in the various races they oversaw, by increasing participation and informing runners about the offerings available.
“This pilot project is an important step towards an even more accessible and inclusive future for our sport,” she said.
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