NAVAL ACADEMY GRAD WINS GOLD AT PARALYMPICS
Snyder captures gold in PTVI triathlon
Naval Academy graduate Brad Snyder claimed the gold medal in the men’s PTVI triathlon at the Paralympics on Saturday after pulling away from the field in Tokyo.
The PTVI classification is for athletes with a visual impairment.
Snyder and guide Greg Billington, a 2016 Olympian, led the race from start to finish and crossed the line in 1 hour, 1 minute, 16 seconds — nearly a minute ahead of Spain’s Héctor Catalá Laparra (1:02:11). Satoru Yoneoka took bronze in 1:02:20 in his home country.
Snyder opened by completing the 750-meter swim more than a minute ahead of his nearest competitor then widened the gap in the following 20K bike and 5K run.
Snyder, a Navy veteran blinded when he stepped on an improvised explosive device in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in 2011, is a seven-time Paralympic medalist in swimming over the previous two games. He switched sports three years ago.
“There’s no way you can possibly imagine how good (winning is) going to feel. And it was really a good feeling,” said Snyder, a native of St. Petersburg, Florida, who now lives in Baltimore.
Snyder’s gold is the first for a U.S. man in paratriathlon, which debuted five years ago in Rio de Janeiro. The 2016 Paralympics had only a visually impaired event for women, making Snyder the first visually impaired man to medal in the sport as well.
The 2006 Naval Academy graduate’s best results before this weekend included bronze at a 2019 ITU World Paratriathlon Series event and gold at this year’s Americas Triathlon Para Championships. He was sixth at his World Championships debut in 2019.
“My life’s not about winning, it’s about challenge,” Snyder said. “It’s about taking on these incremental challenges, learning new skills, expanding my boundaries, expanding my capability.”
Snyder recently said he felt “kind of tapped out” on swimming and had maxed out his capabilities in that sport. He found the triathlon a new test and was excited to learn the skills needed to succeed in that endurance event.
“And there’s even stuff I screwed up today. I didn’t get my shoes on all that fast in (transition) two. So, we have lots of room for improvement. And that’s exciting to go into each new race saying there’s a little bit something I can do better. And that’s what triathlon is represented for me.”