Confidence Brought Hannah Dederick Her First Worlds Medal in 2025

Coming into the 2025 season, Hannah Dederick had been succeeding as a wheelchair racer for many years. 

At the Paralympic Games Paris 2024 in the women’s 400-meter T54 she finished in fourth place.  That matched her result in the 100-meter at the Tokyo Games in 2021.

Being the fourth best in the world in any race is no easy feat, but it doesn’t earn you any medals.

Despite being just 23, Dederick entered the 2025 World Para Athletics Championships in New Delhi with a wealth of international experience, including two Paralympic appearances and two previous world championships. However, she had never won a medal at any of those events.

In India, she finally got over the hump by winning bronze in the 400 with a time of 53.29 seconds.

So, what was the difference this time around?

“I think I’ve gotten a lot more confident throughout my training,” the Mead, Washington, native said. “I’ve been a lot more focused on my training and my work ethic, since coming so close to medaling. My classification has gotten more competitive and has made me want to work harder the last couple of years.”

Of course, that doesn’t diminish Dederick’s previous accomplishments, including that fourth-place finish in Tokyo as an 18-year-old in a packed field.

But there’s always that satisfaction of achieving a goal, which was what made New Delhi special. 

The accomplishment came with Dederick battling plenty of nerves.

A half-hour or so before her 400, Dederick was pondering race strategy in New Delhi’s intense heat. Melanie Woods, an up and comer from Great Britain, was in the field, along with stalwarts Léa Bayekula from Belgium and China’s Zhaoqian Zhou.

“What’s great about the 400 is you go as hard as you can for a lap,” she said. “It feels different from the 100. You can’t make any mistakes in the 100. You go as hard as you can — you can accelerate longer in the 400.”

As for the race itself: “I could hear them coming in the last 200. I’ve wanted to beat (Zhou) the last couple of years. I was ahead of (her) in the first 200, (but) she just had a really strong kick. I’m pretty good at my kicks; It always comes down to the wire.”

The race was close. Bayekula won the gold in 50.99 seconds, and Zhou won silver in 53.22, an eyelash ahead of Dederick’s 53.29. Woods finished fourth in 53.51 seconds.

Back home, Dederick’s coach, Adam Bleakney watched the race online and was thrilled for her but not surprised by the result. Bleakney coaches her internationally and at the University of Illinois.

“She’s a two-time Paralympian and based on her development over the past two to three years, I was fairly confident if she raced up to her potential, it would be a medal,” Bleakney said.

The 400 wasn’t the only event in which Dederick participated in New Delhi. She raced in the 100 as well, where her time of 16.52 seconds was good enough for fourth place.

In the 100, the start is everything, Dederick said. But there always seems to be a wild card, and in this race, it was Turkey’s Zübeyde Süpürgeci, who had never medaled before but took silver this time in 16.19 seconds. Zhou won bronze in 16.22 seconds, just ahead of Dederick.

“It was such a good race,” Dederick said. “I knew it was going to be another tight race. It brings a lot of anxiety and that’s what makes it so competitive about our field. I didn’t expect the girl from Turkey to medal out of nowhere.”

Bleakney said the 100 meters is right in Dederick’s wheelhouse.

“She is able to accelerate quickly, she has a high strength to weight ratio, she can get past the moment of inertia very well,” he said. “The last 50 or 60 meters in the 100 she does a good job with a high finishing velocity.”

As an international medal-winning athlete, it’s hard for Dederick not to look ahead to the 2027 world championships and the Los Angeles 2028 Paralympic Games. 

She feels like what she accomplished in New Delhi sets her up for success going forward, but she takes an almost philosophical bent when considering the future, especially L.A. two years from now when she expects another deep field.

“It’s pretty important to keep up in our sport,” she said. “I think if I focus on my training and build confidence as an athlete, it’s going to pay off in my performance. The more I compete, the more I feel confident.”

Until then, she will be hard at work training and making plans to graduate from Illinois in May with a degree in sports management. 

She’ll be thinking about her bronze medal and what it will take, mentally, to win more medals.

“I think it’s just overall you have to tell yourself that you’re committed to this sport,” she said. “It’s a big sacrifice you have to put for yourself, but it’s so worth it.

“You never take this stuff for granted.”

Gregg Voss is a journalist based in the Chicago suburbs who has been writing sports for newspapers and magazines for more than 20 years. He is a freelance contributor to usatf.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.