Paralympian Chaz Davis finishes first in California International Marathon
Grafton’s own Chaz Davis finished first at the California International Marathon as part of the U.S. Association of Blind Athletes Championships.
He had a finish time of 2:43:11, beating his then-record-setting time from his first California International Marathon in 2016. With a finish time of 2:31:48, Davis set a new American record for the T12/B2 visual impairment category.
The USABA Marathon National Championships are held at the California International Marathon. Since the CIM adopted the Visually Impaired Division in 2007, participation of visually impaired and blind runners has
grown from 2 to nearly 70 participants. This year, the group of 70 blind runners and 40 guides included military veterans, local runners, international runners and Paralympic athletes.
“In 2015, I had my first interaction with the blind running community at CIM and I was moved by the motivational stories each runner shared,” Davis said in a news release from Massachusetts Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired (MABVI). “The support of USABA, Visually Impaired marathon coordinator, Richard Hunter and each runner’s amazing, motivational story is the reason I will continue to come back each year as long as I am able.”
Davis, who now lives in Boston, works for MABVI as an adjustment to vision loss counselor as well as the coordinator for Team With A Vision and United in Stride, a website that matches runners who are blind or visually impaired with sighted guides across North America.
Davis was already a well-known runner as a Grafton High School student, notorious for finishing the Grafton Gazebo Road Race minutes before the rest of the pack. His life took an unexpected turn at the University of Hartford, when he was was diagnosed with Leber’s Hereditary Optic Neuropathy — a sudden vision loss.
Nevertheless, he kept on running.
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 10th in the 1500m in the 2016 Rio games. In 2018, Davis ran the 122nd Boston Marathon where he finished 5th among 15 notable 2018 Boston Marathon finishers with a time of 2:56:22, running as a member of Team With A Vision.
