Monday afternoon, in the heart of Paris, Howie Sanborn will chase his gold-medal dream.
He’ll race his wheelchair down the Champs-Élysées toward the Arc de Triomphe. He’ll swim the River Seine.
“We’ve got a slogan: ‘Burn the ships,’” he said. “We’re all in. There’s no going back.”
The origin of Sanborn’s quest began in the hospital bed of an intensive care unit during the darkest days of his life. There he was, a U.S. Army Airborne Ranger who had survived two tours of duty in Iraq, listening to a devastating truth. There he was, a member of the Golden Knights, the Army’s famed parachute demonstration team, being told he would never walk again.
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“You can imagine the type of blow that is,” the 42-year-old Denver resident said. “But when I was still in the ICU, I immediately started researching hand-cycling and para triathlons on my iPad. That’s who I am.”
Some of his friends were taken aback.
“Some of them were like, ‘Maybe you shouldn’t try to bike anymore.’” Sanborn recalled. “I said, ‘No, I’m good.’
“I knew my military career was over. But as hard as that was to accept, I just knew that with my mentality, I had to pivot quickly. I had to have purpose and a direction. I knew if I stopped and laid down too long, I wouldn’t get back up. I needed to shift focus, move forward, and put this in the rearview mirror. That’s exactly what I did.”
That was 12 years ago. Now, Sanborn is one of more than 4,000 athletes from around the world who’ll compete in the 2024 Paralympics, which begins with Wednesday’s opening ceremony.
Sanborn is the lone American in a field of 10 in the wheelchair division of the triathlon. He qualified by finishing first in this spring’s Americas Triathlon Para Championships in Miami.
The Paralympics triathlon is a sprint-distance event that begins with a 750-meter swim in the Seine, followed by a 20-kilometer (12.4-mile) hand-cycling race over cobblestone streets and concludes with a 5K wheelchair race (the Paralympics’ version of a run).
“It’s pretty grueling, to be sure,” Sanborn said. “It’s a down-and-back swim and going against the current in the Seine is a challenge. And the cycling portion goes over the cobblestones, so it’s a pretty technical race.”
The man to beat is the Netherlands’ Jetze Plat, who won gold at the last two Paralympic Games.
“The guy is a freak of nature,” Sanborn said with a chuckle.
Sanborn is accompanied in Paris by his three-person team.
Joshua Maichin, a non-disabled triathlete whom Sanborn met at Denver’s Carla Madison Recreation Center in 2021, is Sanborn’s handler. Maichin helps transport the gear and is on the course to help Sanborn transition from one event to another.
“Think of Josh as being my pit crew,” Sanborn said.
Sanborn’s coach is Ken Axford from PEAK Multisport in Colorado Springs. Sanborn’s girlfriend, Jayne Williams, an avid skydiver, completes a support team that Sanborn calls “indispensable.”
Sanborn, a native of Alton, N.H., joined the service at age 17 with the dream of being an Army Ranger. He fulfilled that dream and was chasing another when a wicked twist of fate blindsided him.
In September 2012, the Golden Knights participated in an airshow near Kirksville, Mo. Taking time out to train for his first Ironman, Sanborn cycled on a rural, two-lane highway with a teammate.
“We were in the breakdown lane, off the road, and the driver of a car wasn’t paying attention,” Sanborn said. “He hit us from behind at 60-plus mph. My teammate walked away. I was paralyzed from the waist down.”
The former Army Ranger takes pride in his will and ability to self-motivate, but he stresses that he would not be chasing gold in Paris without the support he’s received.
During his recovery at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab (formerly known as the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago), he was introduced to Keri Serota, one of the co-founders of Dare2Tri Paratriathlon Club. Seven months after he was hit, he was competing in a wheelchair race.
“It was double duty,” he said. “I started training for a paratriathlon while I was also rehabbing to learn how to be independent in a wheelchair. It wasn’t easy, but the two fit together; one helped the other.”
Eight months after the accident, he competed in his first World Triathlon, in San Diego.
“I guess a lot of people think that part of my story is kind of insane,” he said. “But I get a little bit hyper-focused sometimes. I wanted to keep feeling like I was moving forward in my life.”
Sanborn has competed in more than 50 international races. He won the 2024 Bolder Boulder professional men’s push-rim 10K wheelchair race in 27 minutes and 24 seconds. But the 2024 Paralympics are his Holy Grail, especially after failing to qualify for the 2020 Games in Tokyo.
“This has been our redemption tour,” he said.
Sanborn hopes that people will watch and pay attention to the Paralympics with the mindset that he and other competitors are elite athletes.
“I hope this puts it on the radar that some people commit their entire lives to this,” he said. “What some people don’t understand is that it’s not a participation event. It’s an elite competition.”
Sanborn understands the idea that Paralympic athletes can motivate others. Still, he doesn’t want to oversell the concept and knows that many of his fellow athletes are resistant to the idea of being “an inspiration.”
“Listen, I don’t know what other people are going through,” he said. “But that person may be having the worst day of their life, and if seeing me in my wheelchair competing in Paris gives them a boost, and they say, ‘I’m going to keep trudging on and work a little harder,’ then I’m all in for that.”
This week, Sanborn is all about Paris and the challenge awaiting of him.
“There is no good way to be paralyzed, I’ll say that,” he said. “Whether it happened in combat or at home in an accident. It just sucks, no matter how you put it. But this can be anyone. This type of injury can happen in the blink of an eye when you are minding your own business. But it’s what you do next that matters. That’s what I’m about.”
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Originally Published: August 28, 2024 at 5:45 a.m.
