Triathlete Grace Norman wins second Paralympic gold medal: ‘It was all God on the market’
By Joshua Doering Sep 4, 2024
Grace Norman celebrates her triathlon gold medal on Sept. 2, 2024. (Picture courtesy of Cedarville College)
Eight years after profitable her first Paralympic gold medal on the Rio Video games, Grace Norman stood atop the medal stand once more on Monday. She won the Paris triathlon — consisting of a 750-meter swim, a 20-kilometer bike experience and a 5,000-meter run — in 1:04:40, beating Nice Britain’s Claire Cashmore by 1 minute, 15 seconds.
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BACK ON TOP! 🥇
Grace Norman is crammed with emotion after turning into a two-time Paralympic champion, claiming the title within the girls’s PTS5.
📺 USA Community & Peacock | #ParisParalympics pic.twitter.com/sVinIoU1B2
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) September 2, 2024
“I attempted to maintain my cool for many of the run till the final lap after I knew I had it,” she said after the race. “I began selecting out my household, my husband, my coaches, and after I glided by, I gave them a bit smile. Having these folks right here, whom I didn’t have in Tokyo (on the 2021 Paralympics), meant the world to me as I crossed the end line. It’s unbelievable.”
It was Norman’s fourth Paralympic medal in whole. Along with her triathlon gold in 2016 — when she was 18 — she additionally picked up a bronze medal within the 400 meters in Rio. Three years in the past in Tokyo, she was the triathlon silver medalist.
Talking after Monday’s race, Norman mentioned the important thing function her sturdy religion in God performed in serving to her persevere by way of adversity and change into a gold medalist once more.
“Oh, man, I’m overjoyed,” she said through tears. “It was a very exhausting 12 months to get right here with a variety of accidents. It was all God on the market.”
In an Instagram post celebrating her victory, Norman known as it an “unbelievably particular second” and gave due to God.
Norman was born with no left foot on account of a situation generally known as amniotic band syndrome and had her left leg beneath the knee, in addition to her proper large toe, amputated when she was younger. She performed a wide range of sports activities rising up and was drawn to the triathlon as a result of it provided three athletic pursuits wrapped into one. Operating is her specialty, and she or he was a four-time National Christian College Athletic Association All-American throughout her collegiate profession at Cedarville College, a Baptist college in Norman’s house state of Ohio.
She got here on the Sports Spectrum Podcast simply earlier than the Tokyo Paralympics to debate her religion journey, her athletic profession and what it was like beginning faculty proper after profitable a gold medal. Norman stated on the podcast that she didn’t really feel near God at occasions throughout her last two years in faculty as she assumed extra of a management function.
She graduated with a nursing diploma in 2020 and reconnected with the Lord within the midst of the pandemic.
“It wasn’t till, I believe, actually after I graduated simply this previous 12 months, God actually got here again into my life, type of full power, exhibiting me how essential it’s to belief in His timing and in His course of,” she stated on the podcast in 2021.
Simply 26 years outdated, Norman has each alternative to compete in Los Angeles in 2028 and try to gather a 3rd gold medal. She additionally has aspirations of serving others by way of her nursing diploma.
No matter comes subsequent, Norman is trusting within the plan God has for her.
“He has all the things deliberate out in His timing and His will,” she stated on the podcast. “One of the best I can do is glorify Him, use His presents to [perform to] the very best of my capability and unfold His love and His message.”
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