Nick Mayhugh has a simple goal ahead of the Paralympic Games Paris 2024: run faster than he did three years ago in Tokyo.

To achieve that goal, the four-time Paralympic medalist sought out an expert.

Last November, Mayhugh moved to Clermont, Florida, to train with a group of sprinters headlined by Noah Lyles — the reigning 100-meter world champion who confirmed his status as the fastest man in the world when he won gold in the event at the Paris Olympics on Aug. 4.

“I’m surrounded by the fastest athletes in the world, the fastest man in the world, which is a blessing to be around that group,” Mayhugh, 28, said. “I’m the only Para athlete there. And so the biggest thing for me is to run my own race, to know that I’m not going to be competing against these guys, thank god, and to know that I am there to learn.”

Among the other sprinting stars who train with Mayhugh in Clermont is Junelle Bromfield, a two-time Olympian for Jamacia (and Lyles’ girlfriend). Mayhugh also said that Alison dos Santos, the two-time reigning Olympic bronze medalist in the men’s 400 hurdles, trains on the same track, just not with the group.

Being surrounded by people that can burn him in a race inspires Mayhugh to get faster. One of the things he appreciates the most about his training partners is that they don’t take it easy on him because he has cerebral palsy; they only push him harder.

“It’s fun to be able to be around that group because they have the same mentality that I do in the sense of we want to be great,” he said. “In Para athletics there’s a stigma around the disabilities too much, and I think a lot of people kind of just ease on us a little bit and they don’t expect us to be great because of our disabilities. … That group of athletes doesn’t treat me any different because of my disability or because I may run a little slower because I fatigue a little faster.”

Working closely with Lyles is a full-circle experience for Mayhugh.

Both grew up in Virginia, and Mayhugh, of Manassas, remembers being in high school and hearing about a local track phenom a year younger than him named Noah Lyles from T.C. Williams High School (now known as Alexandria City High School), which is 40 miles east of Mayhugh’s Patriot High.

Their paths never crossed directly, as Mayhugh’s focus was on playing soccer for Patriot and he didn’t take up track and field until 2019. However, Mayhugh has always been a massive fan of the sport. Now surrounded by some of the fastest people in the world, he said he sometimes just sits back and admires his training partners’ abilities.

Easily the biggest “fan girl” moment he’s had with track came while he was at the Tokyo Games in 2021. After his semifinal heat in the men’s 200 T37, Mayhugh shot a video with NBC commentator Lewis Johnson, who said he’d send the video to Mayhugh’s idol: Usain Bolt.

When Mayhugh woke up the next day, he saw a message from a number he didn’t recognize.

“I opened it and I saw (Bolt’s) face and I just threw my phone,” Mayhugh said. “I was shaking. It was crazy. To have that message from him and that little ounce of encouragement before I go out and race the 200 final, you can imagine what that did for me.”

Mayhugh went on to win gold and set a world record of 21.91 seconds. It was one of four medals he won in Tokyo, including two other golds in the 100-meter T37 and the mixed 4x100 medley.

This past March, Mayhugh traveled to Jamacia and got to meet Bolt, as well as fellow Jamaican sprinting legends Yohan Blake and Asafa Powell, at an event for Puma. Mayhugh said he had ton of questions for the three of them, and he tried to soak in as much information as he could.

“For them to have the time and you know, care enough to answer those questions shows a lot about them and I really, really appreciate that,” Mayhugh said.

Mayhugh can now try to take their advice and apply it in Paris, where he’s set on beating his times in Tokyo. That’s a tall order considering he set a world record in the men’s 100 T37 with a time of 10.95 and took home a silver medal in the 400, clocking in at 50.26.

In Paris, Mayhugh plans to race the 100 and 400, while also making his Paralympic debut in the long jump. This time he’ll be running in the T38 class, not T37.

After Mayhugh’s breakthrough performance in Tokyo, the International Paralympic Committee reclassed him to T38, which includes athletes with less severe coordination impairments than T37 athletes.

While he disagrees with the decision, Mayhugh chose not to appeal to the IPC. Instead, he’d rather accept the challenge and use it as more motivation.

“Their reasoning behind it all basically was that I was too fast for my disability; that I outperform what the doctors seem possible for my severity of disability, which doesn’t make sense, but I’m not going to argue,” he said. “I’m running against faster athletes pushing me to be better. That’s the goal in life.”

Mayhugh said once his athletic career is over — possibly after the LA Games in 2028, although he’d like to stick around for the 2032 Games in Brisbane, Australia — he hopes to work with the IPC to make the classification process as accurate as possible.

“Hopefully I can be involved in that process to better it for the generations to come because nothing that I do now is going to benefit me and that’s not my goal,” he said. “(If I can) set the next generations up to have a better, fair chance of excelling … then my job was done.”

Luke Hanlon is a sportswriter and editor based in Minneapolis. He is a freelance contributor to usparatf.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.

Training With The World’s Fastest Sprinters Has Nick Mayhugh Geared Up For Paris

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