Reilly set a personal best time of 1 hour 37min 36sec in her sixth attempt at victory and will now travel to Britain for this weekend's Virgin London Marathon hoping to defeat Tsuchida for the second time in a week.

Tsuchida had remained unbeaten in the Boston Marathon over the last five years, making Reilly's achievement all the more impressive.

The times posted by Reilly and Tsuchida were, respectively, the third and fourth fastest in history.

The duo provided a thrilling finish (pictured) to the 26-mile event as Reilly raced for the finish over the last 600 yards, just edging out her rival, to become the first American winner of the race since Cheri Blauwet's back to back titles in 2004 and 2005.

Canada's Diane Roy finished third, exactly five minutes adrift of Tsuchida.

"It means a lot, I'm very excited," exclaimed Reilly, who will compete for the US Paralympic squad for the third time this summer following appearances in 2004 and 2008.

"Wakako and Diane are very good competitors – I've never beaten either one of them before.

"I tried to make sure I had enough energy at the end, I really tried my best, and it turned out well."

Looking ahead to London she said: "I really hope to compete well.

"It's going to be an experience for me, I've never done it before, but I'm really excited race these girls again."


Tsuchida was left ruing the energy-sapping 30-degrees heat, and said: "I trained in the heat to get myself ready, but I never thought it would be this hot.

"This is the hardest race I've done in Boston."

She added: "At 30 kilometres [18.6 miles] I realised it was going to be a very tight race, and I was imagining in my head how the finish would be.

"Unfortunately it did not go my way this year."

Tsuchida has enjoyed a remarkable career to date, being the first Japanese professional wheelchair athlete and the first from her country to strike gold at both the Summer and Winter Paralympics.

She claimed victory in the 5,000 metres race in Athens eight years ago along with a brace of victories in ice sledge racing at the 1998 Winter Olympics on home soil in Nagano.

In the men's race Joshua Cassidy (pictured) broke Ernst van Dyk's world record and won comfortably in a time of 1hour 18min 25sec.

Paralympic Games triple gold medallist Kurt Fearnley, of Australia, finished as runner-up for the second year in a row, coming home two minutes behind the Canadian, whilst Japanese Kota Hokinoue was a further two minutes off the pace.

"This is awesome," said Cassidy, who competed in the 5,000m at Beijing 2008.

"I knew some day, based on my training, that it would be possible to win this race."

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


Related stories
April 2011: Boston Marathon champion dedicates victory to Japanese earthquake victims