Grafton’s Chaz Davis wins Boston Marathon’s vision impairment division

Grafton’s Chaz Davis won the vision impairment division of the 125th Boston Marathon, becoming the first ever winner of the new para athlete category.

Davis, running tethered to a running partner throughout the race, finished with a time of 2:46:52.

“Less than halfway through I was in such immense pain that I though about just stopping right there,” Davis said in an interview with WBZ’s David Wade. “But Number 1, it’s Boston. And Number 2, I wanted to set an example for everyone else out there who might think people with disabilities can’t do it. That’s really what brought me to the finish.”

Boston is the first marathon to offer prize rewards for para athletes, with more than $27,000 available for finishers in three divisions: vision impairment, lower-limb impairment and upper-limb impairment.

As a distance runner at Grafton High School, Davis was routinely at the front of the pack, and he continued running at the University of Hartford. But in 2013, he started losing his vision, eventually diagnosed as Leber’s Hereditary Optic Neuropathy.

In 2016, Davis won a spot on Team USA’s track and field team for the Rio Paralympics. He finished 8th in the 5000m and tenth in the 1500m in the 2016 Rio games. In 2018, Davis ran the 122nd Boston Marathon where he finished fifth among 15 notable 2018 Boston Marathon finishers with a time of 2:56:22, running as a member of Team With A Vision, the team representing the Massachusetts Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired. 

Davis works as an adjustment counselor for the Massachusetts Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired and now lives in Brighton.

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