In a little more than six weeks’ time, we will be crowning a men’s wheelchair champion of the AbbottWMM series.
Before then, the two main protagonists will lock horns four times to battle for that silver salver.
So far, between Marcel Hug and Daniel Romanchuk, it’s honors even in this Series XIV campaign.
In March, Hug free-wheeled to victory in Tokyo in the American’s absence, and Romanchuk returned the favor in Boston in April as Hug sat it out due to illness.
Round three of the series goes down in Berlin this weekend, with both men facing each other for the first time since New York City in 2021.
There, the Swiss put the seal on his Series XIII title with a runaway victory.
Much has been made of the new chair Hug unveiled at last year’s Paralympics, where he scooped four gold medals before winning Berlin, London, Boston and New York, only losing out to Romanchuk in a ding-dong battle in Chicago.
There’s no question the new, lower position Hug can adopt in the new machine helped, but it has thrown down the gauntlet to Romanchuk and the others in the field to find a way to beat him, and the 24-year old has proven with that Chicago win that it’s possible.
Berlin feels like home turf for the Silver Bullet. He has won here on six previous occasions and will start as favorite on Sunday.
But Romanchuk will, in his quiet, studious way, have gathered data on his own previous outings here, and will no-doubt have analyzed what it took to conquer his rival in the Windy City last fall. Clever athletes are problem-solvers.
It’s a classic sporting tale of the veteran vs the coming force. Let’s not forget it was Romanchuk who cut a swathe through the Majors in 2019 to become the youngest series champion of all time.
"I don't have a time in mind," said the American."But I'm going to start fast as a lot of races have done this year."
The summer track season will certainly have put plenty of top-end speed into both men, but there is always an element of the unknown about the first marathon distance they have tackled since the spring, and both will face a packed schedule, heading to London and Chicago in the two weeks following Berlin.
If there is still little between them by the time the Series arrives in New York for its conclusion, we are going to witness some thrilling racing.
