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    Daniel Romanchuk’s Pre-Marathon Routine Includes Sandpaper

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    Many of the 50,000 entrants in the New York City Marathon have pre-race routines — carbo-loading, plenty of liquids and so on — but only a few of these routines include wrenches, Allen keys and sandpaper.Daniel Romanchuk checks the contents of his utility pouch in Central Park ahead of the NYC Marathon, Manhattan, 2024.Clark Hodgin for The New York TimesThose are just a few of the tools that the 40 or so professional wheelchair racers rely on to prepare for New York’s hilly and rough roads.Before every race, they tighten the various nuts and bolts on their chairs to make sure nothing rattles lose on the city’s streets and bridges. Tires are doubled checked to ensure they are properly inflated. Adhesives are applied to customized racing gloves.Clark Hodgin for The New York Times“I have a nice long list of everything I need,” said Daniel Romanchuk, who became in 2018 the first American and youngest athlete ever to win the men’s wheelchair division in New York. “I travel with every tool that I could possibly need.”Clark Hodgin for The New York TimesClark Hodgin for The New York TimesUnlike at the Olympics, where there are fix-it shops to help Paralympians in a pinch, there is no dedicated wheelchair repair shop at the New York City Marathon. But by necessity, the racers and their coaches have an intimate knowledge of their wheelchairs and come prepared with an array of tools to allow them to make fixes on the fly.Clark Hodgin for The New York TimesIn addition to wrenches and screwdrivers, racers pay close attention to their tires, making sure they are ready for New York’s potholes and bridges. The organizers provide cans of pressurized CO2 because racers cannot bring them on planes when they travel to New York. Mr. Romanchuk recently switched to tubeless tires, but other racers carry sealant to repair any punctures.Clark Hodgin for The New York TimesRacers also apply adhesive to their gloves, but there is a balance between adding too much and too little, especially if it rains and grips become slippery.Clark Hodgin for The New York Times“I did that in one race when I was expecting it to rain a lot and it barely did, and my glove would stick to the wheel,” Mr. Romanchuk said.The night before the race, officials meet in the athletes’ hotel to inspect every chair to ensure it meets race standards for things like wheel size.Clark Hodgin for The New York TimesRomanchuk inspects the bottom of his racing bikeClark Hodgin for The New York TimesClark Hodgin for The New York TimesThe next morning, the chairs are brought to the hotel lobby and loaded onto trucks and taken to start line. The racers then travel by bus to Staten Island, where they do their final preparations, including packing a few essential tools like an Allen key and small CO2 can to carry during the race.Daniel Romanchuk poses for a photo for his mother at the finish line on Friday before the race.Clark Hodgin for The New York Times More

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      Street Erupts When Man in a Wheelchair Is Taken Into Custody in Killing

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      The body of Yazmeen Williams, 31, had been found on a Manhattan curb, wrapped in a sleeping bag.A Manhattan street erupted in anger on Monday when a man in a wheelchair was taken into custody in the killing of a young woman, whose body had been found wrapped in a blue sleeping bag days before.At least 50 neighbors and family members of the woman, Yazmeen Williams, 31, swarmed the police officers who placed the man on a stretcher and whisked him out of an apartment building in the Straus Houses, a public housing development on East 28th Street near Second Avenue. Some got close enough to punch him in the face, grab his jeans and rip the back of his blue-and-yellow striped shirt. Officers and emergency service workers held out their arms to keep the crowd at bay.Some of the loudest screams were from Ms. Williams’s mother, Nicole Williams.“You killed my daughter! Please kill him!” she cried out.“She didn’t deserve that,” her mother said. “She was a good daughter. She was my best friend.”The man, who has not yet been named by the police, was considered a person of interest in the woman’s death on Monday but has not been charged. Neighbors said he and Yazmeen Williams were a couple, but the family said they were not familiar with him.On Friday, just before 5 p.m., officers responded to a report of a suspicious package outside an apartment building on East 27th Street in the Kips Bay neighborhood of Manhattan. When the police arrived, they discovered Ms. Williams’s body wrapped in a sleeping bag next to a pile of trash.The city’s medical examiner found that Ms. Williams had been shot in the head, and her death was ruled a homicide, the police said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      New York Is Failing to Meet Wheelchair-Access Goal for Cabs, Suit Says

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      Officials had committed to making sure that 50 percent of the city’s taxi fleet could accommodate wheelchair users by 2023. A lawsuit says they have fallen short.Advocates for New Yorkers with disabilities have sued taxi regulators for falling short of complying with a legal settlement that required half of the city’s licensed taxis to be wheelchair-accessible.The suit argues that taxi regulators have shown that they have “no intention of even attempting” to meet the goal.On Wednesday, the group of advocates, which includes four nonprofits, filed a motion in U.S. District Court in Manhattan urging a judge to order the city to meet the requirement. Only 42 percent of active taxis can accommodate wheelchair users.“It is so disheartening that the city doesn’t want to be more than 50 percent accessible,” said Dan Brown, an attorney representing the plaintiffs. “The fact that they haven’t met the goal is really beyond disappointing and sad.”Jason Kersten, a spokesman for the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission, said in a statement that the commission is “committed to accessibility.”“When you factor in our entire fleet, we now have almost three times the number of accessible vehicles than we did five years ago,” Mr. Kersten said. “We will keep working to make our fleet even more accessible.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More