Grafton’s Chaz Davis grabs second Boston Marathon win as a para-athlete
Every Boston Marathon runner knows the drill and Chaz Davis is no exception.
From Beacon Street, take a right on to Hereford Street, then listen as the screams of encouragement get louder as you sprint onto Boylston Street to cross the blue and yellow finish line.
It took Davis two hours, 45 minutes and 45 seconds to run the 26.2 miles from Hopkinton to Boston in the 126th Boston Marathon, and it was well worth it. The Grafton native became a two-time winner in the vision impairment para-athlete category, beating his previous time by just under a minute.
Davis wasn’t the only marathoner with Grafton ties. Among the residents running:
- Octavio Melo, 44, bib 24785; 04:25:11
- Chris Mariano, 52, bib 24772; 04:02:15
- Matthew Shields, 42, bib 9127; 03:17:06
- Amelia Green, 30, bib 28471; no time listed after the half;
- Mike Green, 34, bib 28470; no time listed after the half;
- Viviana Marcotte, 39, bib 26205; no time listed after the half.
Boston is the first marathon to offer prize rewards for para athletes, who compete 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.
Davis now races while tethered to a running partner, switching partners at the halfway point.
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.
