Arimo man takes gold in Parapan American Games

ARIMO — A man from Idaho has won a gold medal in an international competition for athletes with physical disabilities.

Tyson Gunter, 37, a Paralympic athlete from Arimo with a visual impairment, competed in the long jump event in the Parapan American Games held in Santiago, Chile, from Nov. 17 to Nov. 26. He won a gold medal in his competition and returned home to his family victorious.

“I set some goals, and the outcome that I was hoping for happened,” Gunter said.

The Parapan American Games is a competition run by the International Paralympic Committee. It’s held right after the Pan American Games, where in both, athletes from across North and South America compete.

Gunter said that while the games are ran by separate committees, Paralympic athletes are held to the same expectations that Olympic athletes are.

“Although we do have our limitations to our disabilities, our standards are the same,” Gunter said.

Previously, Gunter won a silver medal in the Parapan Games in Toronto in 2015. He’s also competed in the Paralympic Games in Rio De Janeiro in 2016.

Gunter keeps a rigorous training schedule of hour-and-a-half sessions as well as half-hour-to-hour-long sessions of physical therapy. He does all of this while having a family five and a full-time job as a store manager.

Many people might be surprised to learn that most Olympic and Paralympic athletes have to work regular jobs in their everyday lives.

Although it’s sometimes hard for Gunter to keep up this schedule, it became easier for him when he learned how to train, “smarter, not harder.”

“You look at it in the Rocky movies, ‘Miracle,’ ‘Remember the Titans,’ all the sports movies — there’s the perception you need to be doing stuff six to eight hours a day, and you need to be puking your guts out all the time,” Gunter said.

Gunter held this perception for a long time, and didn’t switch to a more focused training schedule until 2020. The previous year, he experienced an injury which prevented him from competing in the Parapan games in Lima, Peru.

As Gunter added physical therapy to his schedule and reduced his time spent training, he found that he could focus on building his speed and jumping ability.
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“I’m only training things that are necessary and essential,” Gunter said.

Not only that, but he was able to establish a better work/life/training balance.

As the crowd roared with applause and “The Star Spangled Banner” played on Nov. 25 when he was given his gold medal, Gunter mostly felt relieved that hadn’t reinjured himself.

“It was just a really fun competition and it was very relieving for me to be able to go out and know that I could compete without (getting hurt) and then win,” Gunter said.

Gunter doesn’t plan to stop at his gold medal. He plans on being at the Paralympic Games in Paris next year. In the spring he’ll have a qualifier for that, so in the meantime he plans to keep training.

Gunter said that when training for competition or for other goals, the motivation to do so has to come internally. He said that although he experiences negative self-talk, he combats that through personal development.

“I just basically surround myself with a lot of positivity because that helps me get over the hard times I go through,” Gunter said.