At age 16, Joel Gomez of Encinitas took 11th place in the 1,500-meter run in a visually impaired class at the 2019 World Para Athletics Championships in Dubai.
His potential was obvious. His results fell short. He took 10th at the 2021 Tokyo Paralympics, sixth at the 2023 Paris world meet, sixth at the 2024 Paris Paralympics and seventh at the 2024 Kobe world meet.
But on Day 4 of his latest global championships — the World Para meet Tuesday in the Indian capital of New Delhi — Gomez broke through.
First in the combined T12-T13 class 1500.
Now age 22, the Purdue University civil engineering graduate took the early lead in the metric mile just before 9:30 a.m. local time.
“But instead of setting a blistering pace, he controlled the race at a conservative clip, relying on his kick in the final meters,” said USA Track & Field. “The strategy paid off. Gomez was able to hold off two hard-charging competitors on the homestretch and take the win.”
His gold-medal time of 3:57.71, equivalent to a 4:15 mile, was off his personal best of 3:45.76.
No matter.
“Nobody was taking the lead,” he told USATF. “And I knew that I had been working a lot more on endurance rather than speed this season. I just had to take it out and keep increasing the pace all the way to the finish.”
Via email, Gomez told me: “It was an absolutely surreal experience! Was quite the tactical race with a 70-second opening lap and then I took the lead with about 800 to go and just slowly cranked up the pace.”
His last 300 meters was a sizzling 40.1 seconds — his last 200 being 26.7 with the final 100 in 13.5.
He held off 30-year-old Aleksandr Kostin of Russia (the 2024 Paralympic champion competing as a “neutral” athlete) by nine-hundredths of a second.
Third at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium went to Australia’s Jaryd Clifford, who wrote on Instagram: “I haven’t been on a 1500m podium for four years. It’s good to be back at this level again.”
Clifford, 26, said he “gave it everything, but it wasn’t enough. Today @joelgmusic had a coming of age run to win his first world title with a really impressive last two laps.”
Gomez qualified for Tuesday’s final by taking third in Heat 2 of the prelims Monday with an easy 4:04.17. (The top seven finishers ended up making the final, including three based on time.)
In 2019, after the Dubai world meet, I reported how the 5-foot-8, 130-pound son of Rynn Whitley Gomez and Carlos Gomez was born with a rare genetic disorder called blue cone monochromacy.
He likens it to the blindness one briefly experiences walking out of a dark theater into bright sunshine — except his affliction is constant.
Gomez said conditions Tuesday were hot — rising to the high 90s — and humid with low air quality — “just about everything a runner despises. It really was just a race of grit and finding that extra gear when ramping up the pace towards the finish.”
For his track preparation, he credits “first and foremost” former UC Riverside track coach Irv Ray, guiding him since the summer before the Paris Paralympics.
“I would also, of course, give credit to Coach Joaquim Cruz (1984 Olympic 800-meter champion), who has been there for me since the very beginning.”
As a prep, Gomez competed against able-bodied runners, representing Canyon Crest Academy and later as an online student at Classical Academy High School in Escondido,
He was the top sophomore in the county in 2019 when he took fifth in the CIF San Diego Section championships in the 1600-meter run with a 4:21.69.
Is he still planning to compete through LA28, when he’ll be 25?
“Yes, and beyond!” he said early Wednesday, San Diego time.
As a 10-year-old in 2014, Gomez won his age-group race at the Jim Ryun Festival of Miles at San Diego’s Balboa Stadium — and met Ryun, the former world record holder and Olympic silver medalist.
“He’s just my hero. He’s awesome,” Joel told me at the time. “I want to be like him basically. I want to run like him.”
Now Gomez did even better.
He’s world champion.
