To many people, Justin Zook may seem like just a young man with more than his fair share of hardships.  Some may call him “disabled,” but he is more than that.   Justin may have been born with Streeter’s syndrome, which means he does not have growth plates in his right leg, but that did not stop him from finding his true athletic talent.  He is a Paralympic swimmer from Plymouth, Minnesota who has been competing internationally since the age of 12, when he competed at the International Paralympic Committee’s (IPC) World Championships. Although he originally started swimming at the age of six as a way to avoid physical therapy, he has since won gold medals in 2004 and 2008 in the 100m backstroke and had big dreams of winning the event again in 2012.

However, Justin’s hopes of gold in 2012 were almost shattered when he was reclassified at the last minute.  Due to the fact that not all disabilities are the same, Paralympic athletes compete in events based on their type of disability.  Athletes go through a series of tests to see how their disability affects their performance in the sport and receive their classification based off the testing.  This method keeps many of the events fair.  Not long before Justin’s first event of the games, he was told by the IPC that he would be competing in a higher classification – meaning his competitors would be more able-bodied than he was used to competing against.  Despite this change, Justin persevered and was able to come up with the Gold, setting a world record in the process.  So, as a three-peat gold medalist in this event, Justin will likely not be forgetting these Paralympic games for a long time.