Wheelchair Racer Bob Hall Marks 50 Years Since Groundbreaking 1975 Boston Marathon

• Bob Hall, the pioneering wheelchair racer who finished the Boston Marathon in under three hours in 1975, is reflecting on the 50th anniversary of his early achievement
• Hall served as a grand marshal for the 2025 race on Monday, April 21
• “I knew it was going to evolve into something bigger and better than I’d be able to do,” he told WCVB

Before the Boston Marathon kicked off on Monday, one former competitor reflected on how his desire to race helped change the course of the event in the years to follow.

Bob Hall, a pioneering wheelchair racer, caught up with CBS Mornings on Monday, April 21, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the 1975 race — when he finished the marathon in under three hours after penning a letter to the race’s director.

This year, he served as the grand marshal for the 2025 race alongside Bill Rodgers, his teammate who ended up winning in 1975.

Five years after veteran Eugene Roberts became the first athlete to complete the Boston Marathon in a wheelchair in 1970, per the Associated Press, Hall wrote a letter to race director Will Cloney requesting to compete. That letter would end up changing the course of both the Boston Marathon and the sport itself.

“He was concerned that it would attract skateboarders, bicycles,” Hall, who was diagnosed with polio as a baby, recalled of Cloney’s hesitancy. “But he said, ‘If you break three hours, I’ll give you a certificate.’ I said, ‘I’m all set.’ ”

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As Hall told CBS Mornings, he modified a hospital-style wheelchair by cutting “off the back real low” and having “angled the wheels.” After his father took him to the starting line, Hall became “part of the pack.”

He finished the race in two hours and 58 minutes.

“There wasn’t a mile that was easy. But there was a lot of miles that were a lot of fun,” Hall told CBS. “The crowds. The turns actually, especially at high speeds. Seeing people on street poles and trees, loops. The smell of cigars. The smell of sausages.”

Hall added that his first finish in 1975 marked “the beginning of Boston Marathon wheelchair division and throughout the world.” Other marathons followed suit. Tatyana McFadden, a Paralympic gold medalist who has won Boston five times and got her start racing on a chair model designed by Hall, told the AP that Hall “really paved the way.”

“Because of him crossing that finish line, we’re able to race today. And it’s evolved so much since then,” McFadden said. “It was him. It was him being brave and saying, ‘I’m going to go out and do this because I believe that we should be able to race Boston Marathon just like everyone else.’ So he had the courage to do that.”

Speaking with CBS, Hall said his efforts at the time were not out of “courage.”

“I’m not a hero. I’m not courageous,” he said. “I just set out to do what I thought I could do and in the best possible way, knowing how I had to do it.”

He added to ABC affiliate WCVB that he “grew to appreciate” what he’s done in the sport. “I knew it was going to evolve into something bigger and better than I’d be able to do,” he said of wheelchair racing and its equipment. “… I’m very humbled and excited that I did help bring it to the level that we see today.”

As CBS notes, the 2025 men’s wheelchair winner was Marcel Hug of Switzerland, who finished in a time of 1:21:34. Susannah Scaroni of Washington won the women’s wheelchair division with a time of 1:35:20.

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The top winners each received $50,000, with second and third-place finishers leaving with $30,000 and $15,000.