TCS NYC MARATHON

November 5, 2023

Marcel Hug

Catherine Debrunner

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Good morning, everybody. We will now start our press conferences with the champions. We'll start with the professional men's and women's wheelchair winners and then bring in our open division winners and our top Americans.

The winners in the wheelchair division. On the men's side, with the time of 1:25:29 from Switzerland, he's won all six Abbott Marathon Majors this year, and the series champion, Marcel Hug.

And the women's winner with a new course record of 1:39:32, also from Switzerland, Catherine Debrunner.

Catherine, a big year for you. You win Chicago. You win Berlin. You win New York. Can you just sum up this season and what it's meant to you.

CATHERINE DEBRUNNER: How nicely, I must say it's difficult in the moment to find good words for it because, as you say, it has been a fairytale year with all the records, with the marathon victories, the Laureus, it was just amazing. I really don't have the words for it.

I was just so incredibly happy when I was on the finish today.

THE MODERATOR: After setting the world record and winning three majors, what tops it? How do you top this in 2024?

CATHERINE DEBRUNNER: Yeah, it's going to be tough. Well, I just keep on training and do what I like the most, and then we see what I can do next year.

THE MODERATOR: Marcel, a similar question for you. You're the first man to win all six World Marathon Majors. I'm told by Abbott that not only do you get a six star medal, you get a gold six star medal. I imagine there are very few of those in existence.

Where do you go from here? You've won everything there is to win. How do you top the career that you've had so far?

MARCEL HUG: Yeah, it's really incredible this year with these six wins in the Major series.

Honestly, I tried to not have this in my mind that it could be the sixth win here. But now slowly I am realizing what happened, and I'm so, so happy for this season and for this race today.

THE MODERATOR: Did you know how close you were to the course record, just three seconds away?

MARCEL HUG: Yes, I knew that I'm very, very close from seconds, and honestly the last 10Ks were incredibly tough. I was just pushing as hard as possible.

In the end it hurts a little bit to be only three seconds away from the course record but I tried everything, so I'm happy.

THE MODERATOR: Catherine, an extra $50,000 for you. What's the first thing you buy with that big payday?

CATHERINE DEBRUNNER: That's a good question. I don't know yet.

THE MODERATOR: I'll give you some time to think about it. We'll open up the floor to questions.

Q. Congratulations to both of you. Just quickly for both of you, can you describe what the crowd was like today cheering for you on the course?

CATHERINE DEBRUNNER: Well, the crowd definitely helped a lot, especially up the hills, and the last 5K was super tough.

Yeah, it was a great atmosphere, great crowd, and I really loved the marathon here.

MARCEL HUG: For me, it was very similar. It was really amazing to have the crowd. They gave me so much energy. But as I said before, the last 10K were incredibly tough, and I was not realizing anymore what's going on around me. I just heard some noise, some atmosphere, but I couldn't feel anything else. So it was really, really tough.

But definitely, it was very helpful to have the support from the crowd.

THE MODERATOR: I want to bring up Emmanuel Butler from Norqain because they don't just win the prize money, they don't just get the medals. The winners of the TCS New York City Marathon get a special edition of TCS New York City Marathon Wild One watch from Norqain, and Emmanuel is here to make that presentation.

Marcel Hug, Catherine Debrunner, your 2023 TCS New York City Marathon Wheelchair Division Champions.