Wallace at the 2013 IPC World Championships. Photograph courtesy of the United States Olympic Committee.
Sprinter Jarryd Wallace was named the Para Male Athlete of the Year at the USA Track & Field (USATF) annual meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana, on December 7. The awards honor USATF outstanding achievements of masters, long-distance, race walking, and elite athletes.
At the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) World Championships, held July 19-28 in Lyon, France, Wallace won gold medals as a member of the 4x100m T42-46 (athletes with amputations) relay team, which set a world-record of 40.73 seconds, and in the 200m T44 (athletes with unilateral transtibial amputations) with a world record-setting time of 22.08 seconds. He was also a member of the 4x100m T42-46 relay team at the 2012 London Paralympic Games, which finished in third place but was disqualified due to a technical error.
Wallace believed he was invited to attend the USATF annual meeting only to speak about the Paralympics and how athletes can better the sport of track and field, he told The Red & Black, the student newspaper of the University of Georgia, Athens, where Wallace is a student. “Track and field athletes have seen Paralympic athletes, but don’t completely know about Paralympics so it was an opportunity to educate and get them excited about what we’re doing. After I spoke, I got a call about being a guest at a breakfast the next day and to just bring a sport coat. I heard ‘free breakfast’ so I went. It was a surprise.”
