American track and field athlete Ezra Frech has won two gold medals at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, but he thinks he can do even better.
Frech won gold in the T63 high jump on Sept. 3, with a Paralympic record 1.63m jump. That came one day after he won the gold medal in the men’s 100m T63.
Now, he has his sights set on the Paralympics in Los Angeles in 2028.
"I'll say it live on air right now. L.A. 2028. I'm going to win something that I've deemed the triple crown: gold in the high jump, gold in the long jump and gold in the 100 meter," he said Sept. 4 on the 3rd hour of TODAY.
"Maybe we'll be doing an interview in four years and I'll have three of these. That's the plan. Manifesting it. Speaking it into existence right now."
The 19-year-old Frech, who is a freshman at the University of Southern California, emerged a star at the Games following his first medal won in any Paralympic event with a breathtaking come-from-behind win in the 100m T63, punctuated when he leaned his head forward at the finish line.
He finished the event in 12.06 seconds, winning by two hundredths of a second over Denmark’s Daniel Wagner, who took second place. Brazil’s Vinicius Goncalves Rodrigues won the bronze medal.
Frech told NBC Sports after the race that he had planned on leaning at the finish line, but he didn't anticipate the final result.
“I crossed the line. I had no idea, looked up, saw my name first. Not what I was expecting, but, damn, am I hyped,” he said.
Frech came out of the box slowly, but pushed himself and picked up the speed as the race progressed. After the event ended, it wasn’t immediately clear who had won, but soon it was confirmed that Frech had indeed taken the gold.
“The whole time I was telling myself to stay relaxed,” he told NBC Sports about his mindset during the race. “Stay relaxed, stay relaxed. Big moments, everybody tenses up. If I stay relaxed, I can do something special. And thank God I did.”
Frech has a prosthetic on his left leg after he was born with congenital limb differences that prompted him to have his leg amputated when he was 3.
Frech also said the reality of his win hadn’t immediately sunk in.
“I can’t even process this right now. I got high jump tomorrow. Everybody make sure to tune in then. Back-to-back golds. I mean, I’m just in shock. This is crazy,” he said.