Should he choose to continue for many more years in this sport, Marcel Hug had a 2021 that will be hard to top.
The Swiss wheelchair racer swept four gold medals at the Tokyo Paralympics, including his second marathon title, and then cut a swathe through the busy fall program of Abbott World Marathon Majors races to storm to a third series crown in four seasons.
He began the truncated schedule far behind America’s Daniel Romanchuk, but rattled off wins in Berlin, London, Boston and New York City to reclaim the AbbottWMM Series silver platter Romanchuk had wrestled off him in 2019.
Hug is one of only two overseas athletes lining up to start Series XIV in Tokyo, with travel restrictions playing a part in the greatly-reduced international field. The other is Great Britain’s Johnboy Smith.
Having won in cold, wet conditions in Tokyo in 2019, Hug has tasted success here before. But with a new year come new challenges as racing clicks back into gear.
“It’s my first competition of the season so don’t know where I am standing,” he told the media on Friday.
“It depends on the conditions. To have a fast time is not my priority but if it’s possible to attempt the course record it would be great. The record from last year is very strong. It’s a fast course and it’s possible to get the record if we work together, but it will be very tough.”
It’s a record held by Tokyo’s own Tomoki Suzuki, who stopped the clock in the 2020 race at 1:21:52 and was also in the field in Oita at the back end of 2021 when Hug flew to a new world record of 1:17:47.
“Suzuki is very strong athlete, we have competed so many times and last year he was one of the strongest competitors. In Oita he competed very strongly.”
Hug puts a lot of his success down to the long coaching relationship he has had with Paul Odermatt, whose tutelage he has been under since his early teenage years.
The pair, based at their impressive training base in Nottwil in central Switzerland, have spent countless hours hammering around the track there perfecting their craft, sharing the same facility as the women’s wheelchair champion Manuela Schär.
“I did one junior race - my first race - without Paul, and then I got his contact number. I met him in Nottwil and from that moment, it’s already 25 years now. It's incredible.
“I always had trust in him. I was sure about his knowledge. He had a lot of experience and a gave me a lot of support from the beginning. He gave me a feeling that he believes in me and he was working so much for me all day. There was never a reason to change this team.”
The world record, a huge cabinet of Paralympic hardware and a string of AbbottWMM race wins that has brought him three series titles are testament to that. Hug has won everything there is to win.
The legend goes that Alexander the Great wept at the age of 33 when there were no more worlds to conquer. Hug is 36 now, and is in no mood to get bleary-eyed just yet at his mountainous achievements. His focus is on this weekend, and getting the new series off to the best possible start.
“I still have the hunger, I still have a lot of fun, it's still my passion and I still love to stand at the start line and get all the feelings, the emotions. Yeah, the love is still here.”
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