From 9News
by Bryan Wendland
Kyle Coon has been totally blind since age 6. That hasn’t kept him from rock climbing at 9, climbing Kilimanjaro at 15, and, oh yeah, becoming the fastest totally blind person to ever finish an Ironman race.
KUSA — When Kyle Coon lost his sight at age 6, he says he got depressed.
But that didn’t last long.
“I actually became a competitive rock climber when I was 8 or 9-years-old,” he said.
He climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro when he was 15, captained his high school wrestling team for two years and started doing triathlons a few years ago.
“It’s definitely become a passion and a real lifestyle, and just because I’m doing it blind, it’s just, you know – I’m just any other, any other athlete out there trying to have fun and compete against myself and fellow athletes,” he said.
Then, in 2016, he did his first Ironman race: 2.4 miles swimming, 112 miles biking and 26.2 miles running. It all has to be finished under 17 hours.
“It took me just under 16 hours to complete the full thing, and I think I walked the entire marathon,” Coon said.
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