ROMANCHUK Daniel

Classification
T54 (IPC, 17 Mar 2021)

Type of Impairment
Spinal Cord Injuries (Athlete, 17 Jul 2017)

Origin of Impairment
Congenital (Athlete, 17 Jul 2017)

Impairment Details
He was born with spina bifida, a condition where the spine and spinal cord does not develop properly in the womb. (Athlete, 17 Jul 2017)

General
RACE ORGANISER
In 2020, together with his mother Kim, he organised the Virtual Roller Marathon event in honour of the postponed 2020 Boston Marathon in the United States of America, allowing participants to race on a coordinated online platform. "It was a very unique but wonderful morning. To be able to see everyone come together and push like this, it's amazing. Another great thing about this is that it wasn't specific to those who had signed up for Boston. Anyone could join. I think it was a great opportunity for people to get to know each other. It really did feel like a marathon morning. You're getting up, making breakfast, just going through that routine of a race morning." (teamusa.org, 20 Apr 2020)

MENTOR
He has acted as a mentor for young Para athletes. In 2020, he took part in a series of webinars covering care and maintenance of wheelchair racing equipment. "Over the past few months [2020] I've been working out a few times a week with some of the athletes from my youth programme. Along with another racer, we have developed a nine-week series on the maintenance and troubleshooting of our racing equipment. I remember getting started in the sport and being terrified to even pump up my tyres because I didn't know how everything worked. So we hope to help the young generation get into this sport and enjoy it." (CBS Boston YouTube Channel, 13 Sep 2020; Facebook page, 03 Jun 2020)

In 2019, at age 20, he became the youngest winner of the wheelchair race in the Boston Marathon in the United States of America. (baa.org, 16 Apr 2019; paralympic.org, 16 Apr 2019)

In 2018 he became the first US male wheelchair racer to win the New York Marathon in the United States of America. He was also the youngest male wheelchair athlete from any nation to have claimed victory in the race. (nyrr.org, 04 Nov 2018; paralympic.org, 07 Dec 2018)