“I wasn’t going to be seen as just someone with a disability.” Throughout time, this has been Hunter Woodhall’s maxim. Hunter’s journey from a crib to the top of the Paris Paralympics podium hasn’t exactly been a walk in the park. Born with fibular hemimelia—a congenital condition—life threw him a curveball early on. At just 11 months old, both of his legs were amputated below the knee to improve his quality of life. Fast forward, and now he’s rocking Paralympic gold around his neck. Surprising? Absolutely. But behind that medal is an entire village that helped him get here.

After a hectic 2024 track and field season, Hunter and his wife, Tara Davis-Woodhall, are now cherishing their well-deserved leisure time off. But that doesn’t mean they’re just sitting around—they’ve decided to dive into some of the untold stories of Hunter’s life. Step one? Hunter took Tara to the place where he learned to live with his new reality and, more importantly, how to run. According to him, there were plenty of attempts to get him on his feet after he was born.

But it wasn’t as simple as that. With only nine toes and his right ankle fused to his leg, things were complicated. Sure, lots of hospitals offered corrective surgery, but Shriners Children’s had a different idea. They suggested something bold—amputate both legs below the knee. His parents agreed, and that’s how Hunter lost his legs but found his confidence. That same hospital hooked him up with prosthetic blades, and his coaches showed him how to own them.

Fast forward to today, and Hunter just got the chance to introduce Tara to those very coaches. It was like a mini-reunion. One coach congratulated him on his Paris success, while another chimed in with a grin, “We made you run, didn’t we? Yeah, we sure did.” Hunter was all smiles. The coaches also spilled some fun details—it turns out they made him wrestle and play football to boost his strength. And there was Hunter, now 25, just soaking up those memories, thankful for every part of it.

Hunter Woodhall couldn’t help but chuckle at the changes he noticed in his old coaching school. He even joked, “I was walking through and I looked to the left over to your side of things I was like wow it’s crazy stuff has changed.” But one thing that hasn’t changed? The warmth his coaches still have for him. In fact, they even follow the Woodhalls on social media to keep up with their daily lives, as one coach proudly revealed. The bond between Hunter and Shriners Children’s Hospital goes beyond track performance—it’s something special.

Hunter Woodhall terms his bonding with the Shriners ‘incredible’

Talking about this part, Hunter Woodhall laid out, “Any time I went to them asking for a new prosthetic for whatever sport I was playing, they built one for me. I went to them and told them I was running 5Ks. They said, ‘We’ve never made a running blade, but let’s try it out.’ They weren’t doing this for the Hunter Woodhall people know today. They were doing it to help a kid try a sport that may not have amounted to anything.”