August is a month of milestones for wheelchair racer Daniel Romanchuk. He got married in Illinois before traveling to Paris to compete in his third Paralympics (his first event, the opening round of the T54 5,000m, is scheduled for 2:51 p.m. ET today.)
But on July 30, about three weeks before he left for Paris, Romanchuk was racing up and down the Bennett Blazers gym at the Kennedy Krieger Institute, weaving through cones and practicing the same drills as the kids.
Romanchuk and his mom made the drive from Champaign, Illinois, to Baltimore so he could help run an event for the Bennett Blazers, the youth adaptive sports program where the Mount Airy native got his start.
“I saw the older generation, after they aged out, they came back to Bennett and showed the next generation not only what was possible in sports, but what was possible in life,” Romanchuk said. “It’s amazing to be able to continue that and be able to help the next generation.”
The older generation of athletes who came back to speak with Romanchuk and his fellow Blazers included Paralympians Tatyana McFadden and Josh George, who he went on to compete alongside Romanchuk in Rio and Tokyo.
In 1988, Gerry and Gwena Herman did a presentation for a group of pediatricians and were invited to help create an adaptive sports program for the Kennedy Krieger Institute facilities that were being built at the time. Two years later, the pair founded the Bennett Blazers as part of the institute’s community initiatives.
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Since then, it’s grown from a handful of participants to hundreds and was the starting point for three of the best wheelchair racers in the world, in McFadden, George and Romanchuk.
McFadden leads the trio with 20 Paralympic medals, George has collected five and Romanchuk has two.
The program has also been represented in fencing and in sled hockey in the Winter Paralympics.
Romanchuk, who was born with spina bifida, began training with the Blazers at age 2, like most participants.
“We definitely believe that starting as early as possible at age 2, gives them a better outlook on life and a better opportunity to develop their bodies,” Gerry Herman said.
The Blazers work to introduce kids to as many sports as possible. Their programs include track and field, swimming, sled hockey, wheelchair basketball and wheelchair lacrosse. The idea is that once the athletes get older, they can they home in on the sport or sports they most enjoy.
Romanchuk credits the Blazers method of starting early and the positive attitude of the program with helping him reach the highest level of competition.
“Their motto is teach kids they can before someone tells them they can’t,” he said. “That’s really the atmosphere that I grew up in.”
Over the last eight years, since the Rio games in 2016, Romanchuk has become one of the best marathon racers in the T54 class (athletes are sorted to compete against opponents with similar disabilities). He’s won the men’s wheelchair race at the Boston Marathon twice and in 2018, became the youngest New York City Marathon winner at age 20. In the Paralympics, he won gold in the men’s class T54 400m and bronze in the men’s T54 marathon.
In the past year, the Mount Airy native has a trio of silver medals in the biggest marathon races. In November, he qualified for Paris with a second place finish in the 2023 New York City Marathon, then followed it up with second place in the Boston and London marathons in back-to-back weeks in April.
But even with his busy race schedule, Romanchuk makes the time to come to Baltimore and train with the Blazers.
Earlier this year, Herman recalls Romanchuk made a pit stop in Baltimore to run a clinic on his way to a track meet in Switzerland.
“He’s given back so much,” Herman said.
Romanchuk doesn’t just give his time. He includes the Blazers in his sponsorship deals and other partnerships.
The July 30 event was also the result of Romanchuk’s connections. He helped the Blazers link up with Allianz, one of the sponsors for the Olympics and Paralympics. The financial services company sponsored a joint event with the Blazers and students from the Safe Alternative Foundation for Education, a Baltimore organization advocating for access to education (it is run by Van Brooks, whose football career was cut short by a broken neck suffered while making at tackle; he’s since become a supporter of adaptive sports).
Romanchuk, alongside McFadden and George, also donates old competition wheelchairs back to the program; a high-performance adaptive racing wheelchair costs around $3,500.
Knowing the previous owner of the wheelchair is also helpful when equipment issues arise. Herman recalled such a case earlier this year, when one of Romanchuk’s former chairs was giving the coaches trouble.
“Gwen just FaceTimed Daniel and the kids were flabbergasted,” he said. “Talking to Daniel Romanchuk is like talking to LeBron James or talking to Tom Brady.”
Romanchuk’s presence and leadership teaches the latest generation of Blazers the same thing that McFadden and George taught him: Anything is possible, both inside and outside athletics.
Chad Landers and his wife take turns driving their daughter Alexa from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, to Baltimore for Blazers practices. Alexa was born with the same condition as Romanchuk and learned of the Blazers from parents of other children with spina bifida.
Being able to see how successful the program’s alumni have been gives Alexa hope in her future and confidence in herself, Landers said.
“When they come back to do this type of thing, it also shows that people care,” he said. “They don’t get too big in their stardom, they come back and they share what they know and it just does so much for these kids’ confidence.”
Seeing people like Romanchuk and McFadden gives the kids a competitive “bug” as they realize they could be successful in sports, Landers said. The competitive spirit has led the Blazers team to back-to-back victories at the junior national championships for para track and field and swimming.
As the Paralympics approach, Landers, Alexa and the whole Blazers community will be able to cheer on Romanchuk, McFadden and the rest of Team USA more than ever as NBC Universal will stream more than 1,450 hours of Paralympic events across 12 days, the most streaming hours ever for the competition.
The increase in streaming hours is a big deal to Romanchuk, who wants to continue spreading the word about adaptive sports.
“Sports has the power to change societal perception of disability,” he said.
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