Susannah Scaroni leads area contingent with four Paralympics medals as games wrap in Paris

As Susannah Scaroni was pushing past the Arc de Triomphe during Sunday’s T54 women’s marathon, she wasn’t thinking about her past week of Paralympic success or even the rough cobblestone streets of Paris.

She was thinking of her hometown of Tekoa, Washington.

“Right before the marathon started, I got a text from my fourth-grade teacher Mrs. Schultz,” Scaroni said. “And she said that when things got tough during the race, listen hard for the sound of all of Tekoa cheering you on.”

That hometown pride helped push Scaroni to a bronze in the marathon, her fourth medal in four events at the 2024 Paralympic Games, which ended with Sunday night’s closing ceremonies.

Scaroni, 33, is back home in Illinois with her haul of three bronze medals (marathon, 1,500 meters and 800) and one silver (5,000) to go with the pair she won in Tokyo three years ago.

“I think the 5K and marathon medals maybe mean a bit more, just because I got to work with my competitors in those races to set the pace and I wasn’t just out there by myself,” Scaroni said. “There are so many incredible women in wheelchair racing right now and I really felt like I was able to test myself against the best.”

Scaroni isn’t the only athlete with local ties who brought home hardware, though.

Eastern Washington graduate and former ParaSport Spokane athlete Jalen Roberts earned a silver in the T37 women’s long jump and a bronze in the T37 women’s 100. Spokane’s Taylor Swanson claimed her first Paralympic medal by taking silver in that same 100, topping Roberts by 0.10 seconds.

“It’s huge for the Spokane area to have this success,” Scaroni said. “It takes programs like ParaSport Spokane and people like (executive director) Teresa (Skinner) to enable athletes like us to learn about sports available and to actually get us out there and compete so we can get to this level.”

Scaroni said no matter the placing at the end of a race, the Paris games will always be special because of the support the athletes received from the local fans – especially coming off the 2021 Tokyo games where no fans were in attendance due to the pandemic.

“I got almost got lost on my lap counts a few times because the stadium was huge and it was always packed,” Scaroni said. “There was so much energy for us, even if they didn’t know who we were. I also had a lot of morning finals, and that meant so many school kids came to watch and that just made it all so much more special being able to compete in front of them.”

Three other area athletes made event finals in Paris. Hannah Dederick raced in the T54 women’s 800, 400 and 100 finals – finishing seventh, fourth and sixth, respectively. Lauren Fields finished eighth in the T37 800 final, and Lindi Marcusen was sixth in the T63 100 and eighth in the T63 long jump.

Scaroni is looking forward to some rest time. But for her, that means taking a few days off before heading to Germany for the Berlin Marathon on Sept. 28.

“I probably would have skipped Berlin had I not pulled out of the last few major marathons before Paris, but now that I’m in the groove again, it’s time to keep pushing,” Scaroni said.