Spectacular Wheelchair Race Performances on the Gold Coast

In one of the most spectacular wheelchair race performances seen on the Gold Coast course, Victoria’s Sam Rizzo took the men’s 2025 Gold Coast Wheelchair Marathon in the cracking time of 1:31:12. His time was the second fastest ever recorded on the Gold Coast only behind Kurt Fearnley’s 2016 race record (1:30:18). Rizzo took victory over seasoned campaigners and former winners of the event, Japan’s Kota Hokinoue (1:40:35) and ACT’s Jake Lappin (1:46:09).

Madison De Rozario (1:51:28) won her fourth Gold Coast Wheelchair Marathon and shared the podium with marathon debutant Mikaela Dingley (2:19:49) and Sharnie Digby (3:22:41) who was competing in her third race of the weekend.

“It was a huge PB for me, I’m just so happy with everything,” Rizzo said.

“When I started off, I just decided to go with whatever happened and having Kota and Jake behind me, I had that in the back of my mind the entire race.

“I made my bed early and had to go with it for the whole race; I just didn’t expect to be that far in front of them from so early on.

“I’ve had a huge year with the London Marathon which didn’t go the way I wanted, and I had a track series in Switzerland which went well, and I put in a really big couple of weeks since then which has really paid off,” he said.

Rizzo, who is also the Gold Coast Wheelchair 10km race record holder, said he has special regard for the course, despite an unfounded fear of rain.

“I was a little worried about rain at about the 20km mark, but then I realised it was just sweat and kept going.

“That crowd is amazing, and I want to give a huge thank you to the organisers and sponsors and volunteers,” he said.

2023 champion Hokinoue said his race didn’t follow the script.

“I didn’t plan that Sam was going to actually leave me, that wasn’t really part of the plan, so it was a bit of one man race,” Hokinoue said.

The 51-year-old who loves races with turns and corners, says the Gold Coast course is a challenge he likes to take on.

“This is a flat and fast course, it's not one of my strengths, that’s why I like coming back to the Gold Coast to challenge myself.

“I’ll definitely be back again,” he said.

In third place, the 2022 and 2024 champion Lappin lamented his inability to notch his third win.

“It's always a nice course, always a good race; I just didn't have it today,” the 32 year-old Canberran said.

“Rizzo and Kota raced so well; they took a corner well early in the race, and I was just a bit off the pack from then, so it became a bit of a time trial.

“I was just trying to hold a nice average speed, but it just kept dropping as the race went on and I couldn’t bridge the gap,” he said.

Madison De Rozario is one of the world’s most successful athletes and that golden form continued on a course where she has enjoyed fantastic success, including gold at the 2018 Commonwealth Games.

Today the 31 year-old, four-time Paralympian won her fourth Gold Coast Wheelchair Marathon in a time of 1:51.28.

“It's nice to be back and get another win,” De Rozario said.

“It's such an unreal atmosphere out there; we've also got our names on our helmets, so it's great to get that cheering and engagement from the crowd as well; it's unreal.”

The racer from Perth, who has competed and won at countless major marathons all over the world, had her sister and family cheering her on around the course.

“The crowds really do turn up on the Gold Coast,” she said.

“And I think that Australia has this unreal love for wheelchair racing that started here on the Gold Coast in 2018, so, racing here feels sort of like coming home for me,” she said.

De Rozario said for much of the race she was racing alongside the men.

“The three guys that took out the top places went out quite early, obviously, and I got to push with two of the other guys for the first 20 kilometres of the race,” De Rozario said.

“It was nice to have someone out there on the road with me, but for the rest of it, it was just me and Nigel [no friends],” she joked.

The champion athlete will keep focusing on her road training as she looks ahead to the Sydney Marathon in eight weeks.

“Sydney's coming up in a little bit, and we'll see how that goes; I'm off the track for the foreseeable future, maybe definitely.

“And because it’s the start of the Paralympic cycle we can try some new things and get some bigger base training in, prioritise training and try new things and see what works with the hard work,” she said.