Berlin Marathon: Manuela Schaer in search of more success

When she lines up to go for her seventh consecutive Majors victory at the Berlin Marathon on Sunday, Manuela Schaer will already have sealed her second straight Marathon Series XII crown and it will have been 525 days since anyone crossed the line of a World Marathon Majors (WMM) race in front of her.

The Swiss wheelchair racer completed an unprecedented grand slam of winning each of the six Abbott WMM races in a row, from the 2018 Berlin Marathon to the 2019 London Marathon.

Now she also is the star of a short documentary film called I Am Manuela launched on Thursday. In August, a film crew from the Abbotts WMM followed the 34-year-old at her training base in Nottwil, Switzerland. 

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“It took me so long to realise what has happened to me in the last 12 months. This has been so emotional,” Schaer said about her victories.

“It has been tough too, because it’s a lot of racing, a lot of preparation for each marathon and it took me a while to find that inner peace again and to really enjoy that feeling. Because it is a big achievement for me,” she added.

In the German capital she will face eight tough rivals including Australia’s 2019 London Marathon winner Madison de Rozario and Schaer’s countrymate Sandra Graf.

On the men’s side, USA’s Series title winner Daniel Romanchuk will not be competing in Berlin. But second place in the current rankings and 2019 Tokyo Marathon winner Marcel Hug will have fierce competition.

The Swiss will face the likes of Canada’s Brent Lakatos, the current Berlin Marathon winner, and eight-time London Marathon champion David Weir of Great Britain.

The Abbott World Marathon Majors is a series of six of the largest and most renowned marathons in the world which, together with those run at the sport’s global championships, form an annual series to determine the world's best male and female marathon runners and wheelchair competitors.