Blake Haxton competes at the Paralympic Games Rio 2016 on Sep. 9, 2016 in Rio.
Haxton not only represented the United States as a rower at the 2016 Rio Paralympics; he was good enough as a first-time competitor to challenge for a medal, finishing fourth in the PR1 men’s single sculls, a 1,000-meter race, which was introduced at the 2008 Beijing Paralympic Games.
He will be doing that again in Tokyo, except that the distance has been doubled since 2017 to match the Olympic distance of 2,000 meters. That will mean a greater physical challenge as well as revised tactical approach to the new length.
In the years since Rio, he’s added another type of paddling to his repertoire: sprint canoe.
“I really like paddling the canoe,” he said. “It’s a fun event. It’s 200 meters — not the mile and a quarter like in rowing — so it’s fun to race.”
With the addition of paracanoe to the schedule for Tokyo 2020, the Ohio State University business and law school grad started looking toward the possibility of doing both events by the time that Paris 2024 rolled around. Once again, his progress surprised even himself.
In 2019, after just taking up the sport, Haxton competed in the sprint canoe world championships and barely missed qualifying for Tokyo.
Then came the pandemic and a one-year delay that allowed Haxton to get more extensive training in the racing canoe, a single paddle vessel designed for a 200-meter sprint.
“The extra year definitely helped,” he said. “It gave me a lot more time to get up to speed. If I could make both, that’d be a dream come true situation.”
And so it was. He earned his Paralympic spot for the canoe at the last possible qualification regatta last May in Hungary.
“To be able to compete in two — and hopefully one of these days medaling — it would be fantastic,” he said.
