Former Weipa marathoner Bianca Graham celebrates completing the Sydney Marathon and the coveted Abbott Seven with Olympian and Indigenous Marathon Foundation director Robert de Castella on 31 August. Photo: Supplied.
Bianca Graham joined global marathon royalty when the former Weipa resident crossed the finish line of the 2025 Sydney Marathon on 31 August.
When she stopped the clock in three hours, 28 minutes, 51 seconds nine days ago, Graham became one of only a handful of runners to have completed the coveted Abbott Seven after the Sydney event was recognised as a marathon major for the first time this year.
Knocking off the Abbott World Marathon Majors – Tokyo, Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago, New York and now Sydney – is one of the pinnacles of the sport, and what makes Graham’s effort even more incredible is that it was her first marathon on home soil.
“It’s a fantastic achievement for Australia and Sydney to now be part of the world majors,” she said.
“To tick that one off is an amazing achievement – it’s actually my first marathon in Australia.
“It’s made me reflect how I started all this, and my days in Weipa; I ran my very first Abbott one, the New York Marathon, whilst I was in Weipa, so, it took me back to the beginning as I crossed the finish line.”
Graham, who is now on the board of the Indigenous Marathon Foundation, said she had not set out with the goal of conquering the world’s major marathons, and instead completed her first event to prove a point to herself, her family and the Weipa community.
“I started, as many folks know, in Weipa, when I was doing the Indigenous Marathon Project (IMP) to get to New York,” she said.
“I was going to be part of the first female cohort of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people to do New York, and I always did that for Cape York and my family, so that we could all have that accolade and to prove that isolation is no barrier.
“From then, I’ve just kept involved; the project (IMP) itself impacted me in such a positive way that I’ve always sort of kept active in it; it was until I was halfway through them (the Abbott Majors) that someone said, ‘oh, Bianca, you’re trying to tick off the majors’, and I was like, ‘what’s that?’.
“I just kept on putting my hand up for these challenges, and it just sort of came about so organically in some ways.”
The reserved marathoner’s performance in Sydney was nothing to scoff at, finishing 5,297th out of nearly 33,000 competitors, and in the top six per cent of more than 11,400 female runners.
With her son, Kai, watching on from the sideline, Graham said she was pleased with her statistics, especially given the challenge of training for the 42.2-kilometre event with a toddler.
“This is my second marathon now as a mum, and my first where he was going to be at on the sidelines,” she said.
“But certainly, training when you’ve got a toddler, it makes it challenging, so, I just thought I’d get to the start line – I didn’t really have times in mind, but I certainly exceeded what I had expected.”
Graham will tackle a half marathon in Melbourne next month, but with nothing left to prove over the full version of the event, she said she would be happy to have a rest until someone twisted her arm to lace up her shoes once again.
“Until my hand gets twisted – and my arm is like rubber – so until it gets twisted again, I don’t know,” she laughed.
Bianca Graham shows off her Sydney Marathon silverware with fellow Indigenous Marathon Project graduate Charlie Maher. Photo: Supplied.
