Kudos to Kyle – Erik Weihenmayer

Earlier this month, my friend Kyle Coon finished 5th in the Triathalon at his first Paralympic Games. Congratulations, Kyle! Your grit is a gift and I’m sure this will only be the first of many Olympics for you.

Kyle and his guide Andy Potts run out of the water in the 2020 (2021) Paralympic Games. Their arms are linked and they are wearing goggles and Team USA wetsuits.

For those of you who don’t know Kyle, he’s blind and he’s 100% a barrier-breaker. I’ve known Kyle since he was a kindergartener (we met on the set of Oprah!) and what I admire so much about him is that in all these years he’s never stopped pursuing his Vision.

As a kid, Kyle learned to rock climb and ski. As a teenager, we climbed Kilimanjaro together with a No Barriers team. And as an adult, Kyle became the first totally blind person to finish a full IRONMAN and he’s since put his nose to the grindstone to become a world-class triathlete. I’m proud of everything Kyle’s accomplished, especially earning a spot on Team USA and his performance at the 2021 games.

You can learn more about Kyle’s life through his book, “Discovering a Life Without Limits: How Cancer Took My Sight, Blindness Gave Me Vision, and the Mountains Let Me Live” as well as on my No Barriers Podcast (episode 113) where we spoke with Kyle only a few weeks before he left for Tokyo.