An Americas Record At The Paralympics Is Just One Of Joel Gomez’s Many Accomplishments

Joel Gomez’s accolades as a Para distance runner are significant, but they’re just part of his world-class balancing act.

The 21-year-old Gomez, who is legally blind, finished seventh in the men’s 1,500-meter T13 for Team USA at the Paralympic Games Paris 2024.

He’s also on pace to graduate from Purdue University in the spring with a degree in civil engineering, bringing a cumulative 4.0 GPA into his final academic semester.

The two-time Paralympian from Encinitas, California, is also an accomplished multi-instrument musician who has taught ukulele lessons and wrote and recorded an original song titled “Running Blind.” He’s given a TEDx Talk. And, oh yeah, he’s already planning his preparation for the 2028 Paralympic Games in Los Angeles, too.

“Honestly, it can be a bit of a juggle sometimes,” said Gomez, who was born with blue cone monochromacy, a rare genetic disorder that causes severe color blindness and other visual problems. “I’ve always just been pretty organized when it comes to scheduling things out. It was a little bit of a shock when getting to college and having the freedom to kind of fit in my workout whenever. When I was running in high school, we would have school during the day and then we would have practice in the afternoon.”

Gomez gave up soccer due to his vision impairment and started running when he was about 10. By the time he was in eighth grade, he ran a sub-5-minute mile.

He won the ambulatory 400 at the 2019 California high school state track & field championships and earned High School All-American honors from U.S. Paralympics Track & Field.

Gomez also burst on to the international scene later that year, winning gold in the 400 and 1,500 at the Para junior world championships in August 2019. Less than a month later, he won a silver medal in the 1,500 at the Parapan American Games.

After his success at those events, Gomez made his world championships debut in November 2019 and his Paralympic debut two years later in Tokyo, where he finished 10th in the 1,500 and 11th in the 400 T13.

Gomez accomplished all of that before heading off to college. But his running success isn’t what took him to Purdue.

“Purdue (is) a very good civil engineering school,” Gomez said. “I was originally going to study industrial engineering, but (I) didn’t really like the program too much, so I switched over to civil and now I’m really enjoying it and I’m just a semester away from graduating.”

His hometown of Encinitas borders the Pacific Ocean and is about 26 miles north of San Diego, so dealing with his first winter in West Lafayette, Indiana, was a challenge.

“It was a bit of a shock. My freshman year, the first winter, it was a tough winter here because we got a really big blizzard. I think it was like 13 inches of snow. That was crazy,” he said. “There are those days where it’s cold and like 20 degrees, and I’m like, man, I really wish I could be doing this workout at home.”

He did not compete in track during his first two years at Purdue, instead training on his own under the guidance of U.S. Para track and field head coach Joaquim Cruz, a gold medalist for Brazil at the 1984 Olympics.

However, not being a member of the Purdue track team limited his access to university facilities. As such, Gomez reached out to Purdue’s new distance coach, telling him his times in certain events were comparable to those on the track team. He eventually earned a spot on the roster. 

Now, heading into his final season with the Boilermakers, they have another new distance coach, Rebecca Richtman.

“I’m pretty flexible under different coaching styles,” Gomez said.  “I’ve done pretty much as good as I would under any coach, but her support has been really appreciated.”

At the Paralympic Games in Paris, Gomez set a new Americas record in the 1,500-meter T13 final with a personal-best time of 3 minutes, 48.42 seconds.

While nearing the academic finish line, Gomez is training for an international schedule that includes the 2025 world championships in New Delhi, India, and the 2027 Parapan American Games in Lima, Peru.

All those competitions lead to the LA Games in 2028, roughly 100 miles from his hometown, and understandably at the top of Gomez’s wish list.

“I’m definitely planning on going there and hopefully being as competitive as I can be, because it’ll be about the peak of my athleticism,” said Gomez, who will be 25 during the LA Games. “I think it will be really, really fun to run on your turf.

“Just having that home advantage, the crowd, and all that, it would be really truly something special.”

Jim Hoehn is a sportswriter based in Milwaukee. He is a freelance contributor to usparatf.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial.