00:00As he committed to his final jump, the surgeries, fractured bones, broken prosthetics,
00:04and the intense, unforgiving training he subjected himself to was all about to finally pay off.
00:10But as he launched himself over the bar, he failed.
00:15Ezra Freck sat back down with the rain pelting down around him,
00:18and he watched as his teammate Sam Pru lived his dream.
00:22Sam celebrated, and Ezra congratulated him, but he found it hard to hide the jealousy in his eyes.
00:28Ezra felt like he'd let down his parents, his friends, and his team,
00:32who had been there at his side supporting him all this way.
00:36However, when he made his way back home, Ezra downloaded the photo of the three medalists,
00:41and he set it as his phone's wallpaper, along with the words,
00:44never again, and then he got to work.
00:47After all, the Paris Paralympics were only four more years away,
00:51and winning a medal in the Paralympics had been a dream of Ezra's,
00:54ever since watching the Rio Paralympics in 2016.
00:57At the time, he was already a remarkably great athlete, even with his limb differences.
01:02When Ezra got his first prosthetic running leg,
01:04he quickly started dominating in para-athletic sprinting and long jump events.
01:08But he proved to be especially adept at high jump,
01:11where he even managed to outperform the able-bodied athletes at local competitions.
01:15So when Ezra did eventually make it to the 2020 Paralympics,
01:19he was hopeful that he could squeeze a medal out of one of his disciplines.
01:22However, with fifth place in the high jump and eighth place in the long jump,
01:26it was clear he still had work to do.
01:29Over the following years, Ezra continued training,
01:31and in 2023, he shocked the world championships by shattering the world record by 5 centimeters,
01:38setting a height of 1.95 meters.
01:41And then, at the US Paralympic trials, he smashed his own world record again,
01:46jumping a height of 1.97 meters.
01:48As the Paralympics began, Ezra was scheduled to compete in three events.
01:53The long jump on Saturday,
01:54the 100-meter sprint on Monday,
01:56and finally, the high jump on Tuesday.
01:59Ezra thought that Tuesday would be the day he would win his first ever Paralympic gold medal.
02:04But Ezra was wrong.
02:17He won his first ever Paralympic gold in the 100 meters,
02:22an event he considered as a warm-up to his high jump final the following day.
02:26But as ecstatic as he was,
02:28he knew that he couldn't let this make him complacent.
02:31He was still out for redemption in the high jump,
02:33and as the following day's battle wore on,
02:35and Ezra attempted to clear the highest bar of the day,
02:38a Paralympic record height of 1.94 meters.
02:51He went home with two gold medals.
