'We're All Human': Prince William Native Seeks More Recognition For Paralympics

MANASSAS, VA — Four-time Paralympic medalist and three-time world record holder Nick Mayhugh continues to push the boundaries in his athletic pursuits, eying a medal at the Para Athletics World Championships in September. He also continues to push for more recognition for para athletics.

Next up for the track and field athlete is the Para Athletics World Championships, which the 29-year-old hopes will bring his first international medal in the T38 long jump and another medal in the 100m sprint.

His journey started growing up in the Prince William County area.

A Gainesville native who later lived in Manassas, Mayhugh attended Battlefield High School in his freshman year. Once Patriot High School opened the next year, rezoning him there. He grew up playing soccer in Northern Virginia, where recalls there was no shortage of athletic talent.

"A lot of my friends were involved in athletics from a very young age," Mayhugh told Patch. "They grew up, they went on to play pro. So that's cool to see my best friends that I grew up with achieve their dreams alongside me."

But at age 14, Mayhugh faced what could have been an obstacle to his athletic dreams. In 2010, he experienced a grand mal seizure and was rushed to the hospital. Testing revealed a dead spot on one side of his brain originating from a stroke before he was born. He was diagnosed with a mild form of cerebral palsy, which explained feelings of numbness in parts of the left side of his body that Mayhugh has experienced his entire life.

"Being told I would never play soccer again was definitely the scariest and hardest time of my life," said Mayhugh. "Those next six months of trying to figure out what I was going to do was pretty tough and hard time for me and my family and everyone that knew of the situation. … But they were such a strong support system and were the reason why I was able to walk out of that office."

Mayhugh was determined to not let a disability drive him out of sports. Instead, he used it as motivation to push harder and inspire others to pursue their dreams.

He continued to play for clubs in Northern Virginia, earning a state cup, joining the Olympic Development Program and playing for the DC United Academy.

After high school, Mayhugh played four years of Division I soccer at Radford University, where the team earned several conference championships and appeared in several NCAA Tournaments. In 2017, he earned a spot on the Para 7-A-Side National Soccer Team, participating in major international competitions. In 2019, he helped the team win a bronze medal in the Lima Para Pan American Games, which was the first U.S. medal in that competition. Mayhugh also won the U.S Soccer Player of the Year with a Disability Award in 2019.

Mayhugh understands that the experiences of people with disabilities will differ, including those like him with "invisible disabilities." But one common threat he says is "we're not any different, any less than anybody else."

"Somebody exactly like me who has a similar diagnosis may go through their life, and they navigate through their hardships and their medical speed bumps, completely different than me," he said. "As long as you're a good person, and you can understand that as long as you have a disability, and somebody may have a disability, it doesn't make them any different or any less. At the end of the day, we're all human, and we deserve to be treated as such."

New Sports and Seeking Recognition for Para Athletics

Mayhugh has proven to have adaptability in his athletic pursuits. When 7-a-side soccer was not an option at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics, Mayhugh switched to track and field. He has competed in the T37 classification, which involves standing athletes whose coordination and movement may be impacted on one side of their body.

Mayhugh got off to a strong start, winning gold medals in the 100-meter final, 200-meter final and the 4x100-meter universal relay final at the Tokyo Olympics. He also set world records of 10.95 seconds in the 100m and 21.91 seconds in the 200m.

The athlete said the transition between sports was "the most humbling thing I've ever tried or had to do." Despite wanting to perform at his best and try for personal records in every race, Mayhugh realized he would have to "learn the hard way and allow myself to learn" the sport.

"Going from a team sport where you can kind of rely on your teammates even if you're not on your best that day … you can lean on your teammates to help you win the game," said Mayhugh. "But track being an individualized sport, it's marketed as a team sport, you're on Team USA. You get on that line for the [100m] or any of the individual events, it's you versus seven, eight other guys, and it's all on you."

Mayhugh has a better understanding of the sport today, but he's facing a new hurdle: injury. Weeks ago, he found out he had a stress fracture in his foot and still won the men’s T38 long jump with a best mark of 6.18 meters. Mayhugh hopes to be recovered to compete in the Para Athletics World Championships in a little over a month in New Delhi, India.

He will compete in the T38 long jump and 100m sprint and hopes to get new personal bests and help Team USA sweep the 100m medals.

"It's been a long year, and I'm trying to be easy on myself, but to go there and also have high expectations," said Mayhugh. "The U.S. has a real opportunity to clean sweep [the three medals in the 100m], so that would be pretty cool for Team USA and our country. I'm just hoping to go out there, run a [personal best] in the 100 and jump a [personal best] in the long jump, and come away with two medals."

Aiming To Compete In 2028 Los Angeles Games

Mayhugh is also eyeing his third Paralympics at the 2028 Los Angeles event. He says making it to the international competition takes years of preparation.

"I sat down with my coaches, my doctors and my team, and we scoped out our goals for 2028, and we work backwards," said Mayhugh. "You have to build a foundation first. And that's what's going on this year in [2025] and [2026] will build on it, [2027] will build on it, and continuing to get stronger, faster and be able to build into 2028."

Mayhugh is a strong proponent of building more interest in the Paralympic Games, calling them "more exciting than able-bodied sports." He pointed to the example of Matt Stutzman, who became the first armless archer to secure a gold medal in the individual compound in Paris.

"I don't see any able-bodied athlete being able to shoot bow and arrows with their feet, so that's pretty cool to see," said Mayhugh. "It's not just a feel good story. It's not just what we've been able to overcome. … I want people to recognize it as an actual sport."

Mayhugh also encourages spectators to have a sense of humor at the competitions. He recalls times where athletes at competitions hid each others' prosthetic legs or wheelchairs and had to go find them.

"Don't laugh at us, laugh with us because we're laughing, I promise," said Mayhugh. "We have the best of humor and have been through a lot, and that's one of the biggest ways that we cope with anything, is our humor."

Mayhugh can count the milestones from gold medals to American and world records and credits his family and coaches for supporting him all the way. But there's another meaningful milestone that's resulted from his athletic career.

"The milestone of being able to be given a platform to speak, motivate, inspire, and hopefully encourage the next generation and people like me, whether they're the same age, have the same disability or, something worse … inspire them to get out and to not give up, is probably the biggest milestone that I've achieved so far," said Mayhugh.