By Zach Schneider
Elisha Barno and Volha “Olga” Mazuronak are certainly on different ends of the experience level when it comes to Grandma’s Marathon – one entered as the winningest runner in the event’s history, and one was making a first-time appearance in Duluth.
On Saturday morning, though, the two could be referred to with the same word – champion.
Barno continued his dominance in Duluth, leading from wire-to-wire and finishing with a time of 2:10:55 and securing his record-setting sixth career Grandma’s Marathon victory.
“I’m very happy and proud of myself,” said Barno, who was inducted into the Grandma’s Marathon Hall of Fame last year just one day before what was then a record-setting fifth win in Duluth. “I want to come back and try to win again.”
While Barno may know the Grandma’s Marathon racecourse better than anyone, it was Mazuronak on the women’s side who made headlines despite this being her first time in Duluth – she finished in 2:23:52 to break the record of Kellyn Taylor from 2018.
“I feel happy,” she said after her win, talking with reporters using the occasional assistance of Google Translate. A two-time Olympian for Belarus, she now lives in the United States and says her friend encouraged her to try Grandma’s Marathon. “She said you can come here and run fast, and I guess that’s true.”
Zoey Viavattine, meanwhile, set a new event record in the non-binary division, finishing in 2:44:43 and breaking the record set by Steven Bugarin just last year.
After US Paralympians Aaron Pike, Susannah Scaroni and Jenna Fesemyer dropped out of this year’s Grandma’s Marathon wheelchair division due to forecasted rainy conditions, it might’ve been wondered who would deliver the fireworks.
Cue Luis Francisco Sanclemente and Ivonne Reyes Gomez.
Sanclemente, who was part of a four-man pack for much of the race, pushed himself clear in the race’s final miles and crossed the finish line with tears of joy streaming down his face.
The Colombian has reached the podium twice in five previous trips to Duluth, finishing third in 2023 and 2019. This time, he wouldn’t be denied and finished with a time of 1:22:07 to earn his second win of 2024 – he had already won the Los Angeles Marathon in mid-March – and potentially a spot on his country’s Paralympic squad.
Reyes Gomez, meanwhile, becomes just the sixth woman to have multiple wheelchair titles at Grandma’s Marathon. Her time of 1:48:24 was a new personal best, beating the time she set in Duluth in 2019, and comes just months after she had finished runner-up earlier this year at the Los Angeles Marathon.
Even with several pre-race dropouts, 21 total wheelchair participants (17 men, 4 women) crossed the finish line on Saturday morning.
This was the second-largest Grandma’s Marathon – the event itself – in its 48-year history, with 7,359 total finishers (4,323 men, 3,012 women, and 20 non-binary). The only larger marathon was in 2016, when there were 7,518 finishers in Duluth.
Including each of the weekend’s three races – Grandma’s Marathon, the Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon, and the William A. Irvin 5K – the 2024 race weekend was the largest in the organization’s history, with 17,401 total finishers across the three events.