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Brent Lakatos won four silver medals at the Tokyo Paralympics this year, finishing as the runner-up in the 100, 400, 800 and 5000 meters, in addition to placing fourth in the marathon. The five-time Paralympian now has 11 Paralympic medals, including the gold medal he won in the 100-meter sprint at the Rio 2016 Games.

Lakatos had a freak ice skating accident at the age of six that resulted in a blood clot on his spine and left his legs paralyzed. He continued to play sports and focused on wheelchair basketball; he was recruited to play for the University of Texas at Arlington, where he won a national title in 2002.

He had been introduced to wheelchair racing by Paralympic champion Andre Viger at age 15, but it wasn’t until eight months before the Athens 2004 Paralympics that he switched to the sport full-time. He qualified for Team Canada in two individual events and was part of two relay teams, but failed to make the finals in any individual events. He qualified for the finals in three events at the Beijing 2008 Paralympics and at the London 2012 Paralympics won three silver medals. He reached the pinnacle of the sport at the 2013 World Championships, collecting four gold medals, and then at the Rio 2016 Paralympics won a gold, a silver, and two bronze.

In 2018, Lakatos surprised even himself by out sprinting the more experienced marathoners and winning his first major marathon in Berlin. Despite battling health issues in 2019, he concluded a tough season in brilliant fashion with two gold medals and a silver at the World Championships. Now an 11-time world champion on the track, Lakatos more recently switched his focus to the roads, winning the London Marathon in 2020, which he calls one of the top highlights of his career.

Lakatos is married to Paralympic medalist Stefanie Reid who competes for Great Britain, and he works as a program analyst.