Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Tekoa resident appreciates the city’s support
Susannah Scaroni, who grew up in Tekoa, makes her third Paralympics appearance in Tokyo after winning the U.S. trials in June in the women's wheelchair 5,000 meters and 1,500 meters races.
CHAMPAGNE, ILL. — Susannah Scaroni wasn’t even racing.
She was pushing road miles in a wheelchair as a freshman and sophomore at Carroll College in Helena, Mont.
Then her chemistry professor told her about a GPS-based website “Map My Run.”
It turns out her little route was 22 miles.
“I was just doing this because I liked it,” she said.
Scaroni got a call inviting her to transfer to the University of Illinois to train in a wheelchair racing program. A coach connected to it knew of her through her appearances at Bloomsday while growing up in Tekoa.
Scaroni has been training, racing, and studying in Illinois ever since.
She was named to the U.S. team for the Paralympic Games in Tokyo from Aug. 24 to Sept. 5, qualifying in four events. That’s three more than her two previous Paralympics.
At the U.S. trials in Minneapolis in June, she won the 5,000 meters and the 1,500 meters and took second in the 800.
No marathon was held at the trials, but Scaroni previously qualified.
Now a graduate student in the University of Illinois’ Division of Nutrition Sciences, Scaroni hopes to be a sports dietician after she finishes her master’s degree next spring.
“(The program) is really well-aligned with what I do on the side,” she said.
After the pandemic hit, Scaroni and her teammates trained separately from March to August of last year.
“I didn’t have anyone to compare myself to, except for me ... it was a great year of training,” she said.
Once back together, the team had no track access. The venues were closed. So Scaroni was not on a track from the world championships in Dubai in November 2019 until May 2021.
Last week, she and the American team of eight women and the men’s team began a three-week intensive training regimen that to taper off before they leave for Japan.
A usual day for Scaroni started at 7:30 a.m. on July 19 on the track, then onto surprise drug testing, back to the training center to work with a coach on her gloves, then weightlifting practice, and leg compressions later at home.
“Then I’ll make some dinner and talk to my boyfriend on the phone,” she said.
Her thesis work remains to be done, though Scaroni has put a date of Aug. 2 to stop it until after the games.
Paralyzed in a car accident while in kindergarten, she began racing at age 12 as part of Team St. Luke’s Rehabilitation Center, which is now ParaSport Spokane.
Tokyo promises to be different for Scaroni. She finished seventh in the marathon in Rio and eighth in London.
After the roaring applause of London and the closer-to-empty stands of Rio, she will move into the Olympic village again in Japan.
“I love the Village so much … Especially the dining hall, trying new food, meeting people, the international language of food, and how they showcase different regions,” Scaroni said.
In 2016, something she took with her proved useful.
“In Rio, they had not-good coffee and I had brought a hand grinder and AeroPress, brought beans and people started coming up to me,” she said.
At the 2019 world championships, Scaroni finished third in the 800 meters and the 5,000. She took fourth in the 1500 and sixth in the 400.
Now competing in four events during the 2021 Olympics, compared to solely competing in the marathon before, did she think this could happen?
“I was really surprised,” Scaroni said. “But at a competition in Switzerland in May, I could tell I had improved, seeing how I did, my times, and how I finished. I wouldn’t have thought this (possible) last year.”
Back on the track, she works on rolling accelerations and drafting, a key element of wheelchair racing.
Scaroni, 30, was born in Burns, Ore., and raised in Tekoa, the daughter of Barbara and the late Warren Scaroni. Barbara still lives in Tekoa and works for the Coeur D’Alene Tribe as a forester. Susannah has two brothers, Jesse and Chris, and a sister, Rose.
NBC plans to broadcast more than 1,200 hours of the Paralympics this year.
Because of the announcement that Tokyo will not allow fans, NBC invited two of each U.S. athlete’s family members or supporters to Colorado Springs for two days. Barbara and Jesse, Susannah’s brother, will go.
“I am so incredibly honored to be an American,” Scaroni said. ”We have so many resources and freedoms I don’t take for granted.”
Her appreciation is local too.
“The people of Tekoa, they’ve … never wavered in their support of me,” Scaroni said.
She was once the grand marshal of Slippery Gulch Days.
“I love the egg toss so much. That’s what I miss,” she said.
Next for her, Tokyo begins in three weeks.
“I am nervous, I will say, a little bit,” said Scaroni.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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