44-year-old Mohamed Lahna (@mohamedlahna) grew up in Casablanca. Life was not easy – Lahna was born without a right femur and fibula. With the help of various organizations and people, he became a good swimmer and, later on, a decent runner and world-class paratriathlete.
He represented his native Morocco at the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games where he won a bronze medal in the PTS2 category. He became a naturalized American citizen and now lives in Hayward, California. By the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games, he represented the USA and ultimately won a Paralympic silver medal.
Lahna has been around the world competing in triathlons (including the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii in 13 hours 19 minutes and the Norseman Xtreme Triathlon in 15 hours 27 minutes) and para triathlons around the world including in Brazil, Norway, France, Spain, Great Britain, Canada, USA, Japan, UAE, Italy, Australia, Netherlands, New Zealand, China, and Hungary. He has also competed in the 250 km Marathon de Sables across the Sahara Desert and a 14.4 km Strait of Gibraltar wetsuit crossing.
Background
Lahna was was told that it was too dangerous to run. So what did the young, ambitious Lahna do? He played sports on crutches.
At the age of 6, he went to an elementary school for children with disabilities where he received a leg made of wood and leather. The wooden leg did not bend, but then, neither did Lahna.
In 2002 at the age of 20, his life changed after he received his first running prosthetic. Five years later, he rode his first bicycle – and then took off cycling throughout the Atlas Mountains in Morocco as a 25-year-old. He was relentless in his pursuits, from wheelchair racing to completing his first triathlon with crutches.
In 2009, he found himself at a Challenged Athletes Foundation event in the U.S. and in July 2020, he crossed the 14.4 km Strait of Gibraltar from Spain to Point Cires, Morocco in a wetsuit in 4 hours 26 minutes.
When para triathlon was added to the 2016 Rio Paralympics calendar, Lahna was ready. In Rio de Janeiro, he won a bronze medal. The future looked brighter than ever as he entered the next Paralympic quadrennial cycle and was applying for U.S. citizenship. He started to train USA national para triathlon team at the US Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs with eyes on the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics.
But, then obstacles kept ruining his dreams.
World Triathlon decided the PTS2 category would not be one of the para triathlon categories at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics. It was a crushing blow that suddenly stopped him in 2018. But he transitioned to working full-time with Visa and moved to Hayward, California where he and his wife continued to raise their three children in the Bay Area.
His Paralympic dreams were over…or so he thought.
Another call came where he learned that his PTS2 category would be competed at the 2024 Paris Paralympics. But now with a family and work, he had decisions to make. Could he make another Olympic dream come true with full-time work, a young family, and training to compete at the highest level?
Given all the other obstacles he has faced and overcome in his life, the-then 39-year-old decided to continue forward.
But in his first race back after his planned retirement, he finished last in his category at the 2021 World Championships. He kept on plugging away and by the 2023 World Triathlon Para Championships in Pontevedra, Spain, he finished second and qualified for Paris where he finished second, winning a silver medal.
But Lahna is going many steps further in his adopted America.
His para coach John Dussliere summed up the para athletes well, “Able-bodied athletes come up with good stories. Para athletes live great stories.”
Triathlon Across America: Coast to Coast
On June 15th, Lahna completed the first leg of his Triathlon Across America. He swam the 45.9 km 20 Bridges Swim around Manhattan Island in his wetsuit. He is now on his bike leg, a solo 4,800 km ride from Manhattan Island in New York City, across 16 states to Las Vegas. After the T2 in Las Vegas, he plans to run through the brutal American southwest desert from Las Vegas to Venice Beach in Southern California.
For more information about Lahna, visit mohamedlahna.com.
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