Crystal Wise
“You don’t choose the decathlon — the decathlon chooses you,” says Lindon Victor, a Fort Worthian and two-time Olympian who will soon travel to Paris for the 2024 Summer Olympics. He’s on the hunt for a medal in the decathlon, considered by many to be the toughest Olympic sport of all: 10 track and field events over two consecutive days. Victor will compete for his home country of Grenada but will also represent the Lone Star State, where he’s spent most of his adult life. “I consider myself a Texan,” he says. With tremendous resilience and determination that any Texan would be proud of, Victor has overcome countless challenges, ongoing injuries, and 25 college rejection letters. “I feel like all those experiences have prepared me to be ready for this Olympics,” he says. “Each step that I took has strengthened me mentally and taught me patience when things aren’t going right.”
Coming off a bronze medal at the World Championship last year, the 31-year-old decathlete has momentum on his side. During his career, he’s broken more records and won too many awards to list, including the NCAA Division 1 Championship (twice) and a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games (also twice). He competed at the last two Summer Olympics in Rio and Tokyo, and now he heads to France. Paris will host the 2024 Summer Olympics from July 26 through Aug. 11, with competitions taking place at iconic landmarks throughout the French capital: beach volleyball under the Eiffel Tower, fencing in front of the Grand Palais, equestrian events at the Château de Versailles. The Seine River will be the setting for the opening ceremony, where Victor will carry Grenada’s flag alongside the two other athletes from his country. One week later, the decathlon begins.
Decathletes must throw the javelin, shot put, and discus; they complete a long jump, high jump, and pole vault; and they run 110-meter hurdles plus 100-meter, 400-meter, and 1,500-meter races. Many decathletes could excel at other sports, but few other athletes could excel at the decathlon. It requires an incredible combination of endurance, strength, and agility — not to mention mental and emotional acuity. “Decathletes fit a mold and a prototype, and certain things you just have to be born with,” explains Victor. Representing the pinnacle of all-around athleticism, the decathlon’s Olympic gold medalist is awarded the title of World’s Greatest Athlete.
“I am truly grateful because I know that I’m in this position because of the grace of God. There are not a lot of people blessed enough to be able to do 10 events, you know? I think about the guy that was given 10 talents,” he says, referring to the Parable of the Talents in the Gospel of Matthew. “That’s how I feel. God gave me these talents, and the best way to reward him is to maximize those talents, even when setbacks come.”
Island life
Crystal Wise
Victor’s story starts in Grenada, a volcanic island in the southern Caribbean not far from the coast of South America. Ringed by pristine reefs and warm turquoise waters, Grenada is known as the “Spice Island” for its copious production of nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves — and for the sweet aromas that drift along its soft, powdery beaches and rainforest trails. “Compared to Fort Worth, it’s tiny,” says Victor. Grenada covers 135 square miles and has a population of 125,000; Fort Worth covers 355 square miles and has a population of 950,000. “But it’s paradise because it has some of the best beaches in the world, some of the best waterfalls in the world, friendly people … it’s a beautiful, tropical island.”
When Victor takes the field at the Paris Olympics, his country will be watching. “There’s a huge time difference, and there are people getting up at 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. just to watch me compete,” he says. “That’s what gets me going. It drives me to compete at a higher level because there are people who really care. I don’t take these things for granted, so I try my best to give it my all because I know that I have a whole country on my back.”
As a child in Grenada, Victor spent most of his time on the family farm with his dad. “We grew all the things that we ate. It’s the tropics, everything grows on the island.” They also raised animals: pigs, goats, sheep, and cattle. “I would use the machete to cut wood and cut the hay for the cattle all the time, so I developed a really strong arm just by doing that consistently as a young boy.” He would load bundles of hay on his back to feed the animals, sometimes carrying it for hundreds of meters — and often running. “I was always really competitive,” he says. “So I was training for the decathlon, but I didn’t know I was training for the decathlon because it was just farm work.”
Running and working beside him were many of his 10 siblings, like his older brother Kurt Felix. It was Kurt who first began competing in the decathlon and whose success has driven Victor to achieve new heights. “I started the decathlon because whatever my brother did, I wanted to do better. He got a scholarship, so I wanted to get a scholarship,” he says. “My whole goal was to get a university degree because I couldn’t just pay for it.”
Coming to America
Crystal Wise
But getting into school would be his most difficult challenge yet: More than two dozen colleges turned him down. “They told me that I wasn’t good enough; they told me that I couldn’t help their team,” he remembers. “And then … one college told me yes.” He secured a scholarship from Benedictine College, a small liberal arts school in the northwest Kansas town of Atchison. But where were the skyscrapers? “When I got there, my perception of America was New York. I thought everything was a big city with big buildings and lots of traffic.” But it wasn’t Atchison’s small stature that shocked Victor the most. “In Grenada, it’s never cold. Coming from the Caribbean and experiencing winter for the first time … I didn’t know that it was possible to be that cold. I didn’t know that it could get to negative degrees. On TV, they make it seem like it’s only cold around Christmastime,” he laughs.
After a year in Kansas, Victor transferred to Texas A&M. “To have the opportunity to get an education at a school like Texas A&M to me was a big deal,” he says. “I went to College Station and I loved it. I was surrounded by some of the best athletes in the world, and it just kind of rubbed off on me. Before I knew it, I was one of the best athletes in the world.” The discipline that Victor learned on the farm served him well. “Growing up on the island, I had to get up at 6 a.m. to take care of all my animals before I went to school. So when I got to college and I had 6 a.m. weights or something, it was easy for me because I had already established a routine of getting all my stuff done before I went to school.”
When he initially arrived at A&M, nobody knew who he was. But all that changed during his first track meet in the Southeastern Conference (SEC), where he improved his decathlon score by 1,000 points — a giant leap forward that elevated him to No. 2 on the collegiate lists. “It pretty much shocked the world,” he says. Shoe companies started calling, and other coaches began asking about him. “That’s when I knew I had a chance to be really good.”
Victor’s brother Kurt had previously won the decathlon at the NCAA Division I Championship, so Victor aspired to do the same — and he won the title twice, in 2016 and 2017. Kurt had competed in the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, and Victor joined him at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio. The brothers went head-to-head on the field of play.
“I was a young kid, full of inexperience,” recalls Victor. “I was a medal favorite, but my mind was all over the place. I was thinking about 10 different things at a time.” He finished 16th. Over the next few years, he continued climbing in the world rankings and collected trophies and titles all over the globe. He graduated from A&M in 2017 and set his sights on the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, “a little bit more mature” than he’d been in Rio. But three months before the Games began (in 2021 due to the pandemic), he tore his oblique muscle throwing a javelin. Despite his injury, he still placed seventh in Tokyo and, amazingly, scored a new personal best in the javelin.
New coach, new team, new home
Kelly Stark
But Victor knew he had more in the tank. He wanted a fresh start, so he cleaned house. “I fired everybody,” he says. “I changed my coach, I changed my nutritionist, I changed my medical staff.” He reached out to Chris Huffins as a potential coach; Huffins won the bronze medal in the decathlon at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and had coached at several top schools including Clemson and the University of California. Huffins’ wife had just accepted a job at TCU, and the couple was moving to Fort Worth, which is how Victor found himself here as well, training with the coach he wanted.
The rest of his team soon came together organically. “Everybody that I started working with here has really helped me take good care of my body. I’m healthier, I’m fitter,” he says. “And sometimes my team protects me from myself because I always want to do more and more and more and more.” Victor also credits his team with helping him stay motivated after setbacks. “As an athlete, you’re always expected to win. But the reality is that they only give out three medals. So having the right people around you is important to encourage you and to let you know that being an athlete is what you do, but it’s not who you are.”
Years of experience in the decathlon have also taught Victor a great deal. “In the decathlon you can’t get too low if you have a bad event, because you still have nine more. And you can’t get too high after one event, because you have nine more. So, it’s about just staying even-keeled and staying in the moment,” he says — sound advice not just for sport, but for life. “Because sometimes you think something is a disappointment, and it turns out to be really good; there’s also disappointment that comes with success. I think disappointment comes to protect us and to give us a wake-up call.”
Training in Fort Worth
Crystal Wise
Leading up to a major event like the Olympics, Victor trains for six hours a day on average, with some days as long as eight hours. On Sundays, he rests. He doesn’t follow a specific diet, preferring to keep things simple. “I just try to eat as clean as possible. As a professional athlete, you know what you shouldn’t eat. So just don’t eat it.” He cooks many of his own meals, often Caribbean dishes that he grew up with. “I eat a lot of curry chicken, a lot of barbecue chicken, a lot of stew meat,” he says. “I enjoy whipping it up in the kitchen. I will experiment with different recipes, baked chicken, steak, rice and peas … the kitchen is like my sanctuary.”
“But I tell you what: I’ve taken a liking to Texas barbecue. I don’t know how to make brisket, but I really like it. In the Caribbean there’s no such thing as Texas barbecue, brisket, and stuff like that, so that to me was a whole new experience.” His favorite local joints are Panther City, Smoke-A-Holics, and Heim. He’s also fond of the Fort Worth Botanic Garden and Water Gardens — and the hot Texas climate. “The weather is really, really, really good,” effuses Victor, who can be found exercising outside for hours in the middle of August when the temperature soars to 110 degrees. “There are a lot of Caribbean athletes out here training. I think they love it here because the facilities are really good, and the weather is almost always good.” For Victor, Fort Worth is a match made in heaven. “It’s the perfect place to train for me. It’s not too big, it’s not too small. Everything that you need you can find in Fort Worth, and the people here are really nice. I absolutely love it.”
The new team and new home have served Victor well. “Since the time I started training in Fort Worth, my career has really taken off,” he says — most notably at the 2023 World Championships when he walked away with the bronze medal around his neck. “Winning that medal just showed how much I’ve persevered over the years to get to that point, because it was never easy. There were multiple times I could have given up, times when nothing was going right. But pushing past that point and getting onto the podium, that to me is one of my biggest accomplishments.”
On to Paris
Crystal Wise
While he’s competed in France many times before, the Olympics are on a whole different level. “Sometimes I get star-struck seeing some of the athletes there,” he admits. “You have literally the world’s greatest athletes assembled in one spot getting ready to compete. I don’t even know how to describe it. There’s nothing like it. And the level of focus that’s on everybody’s faces … you can see it. The energy there is remarkable.”
The decathlon begins on the morning of Aug. 2, when Victor will take on the 100-meter dash, long jump, shot put, high jump, and 400-meter run. “As soon as I’m done with the last event, I need to cool down, I need to get my massage, I need to get in the cold tub, and I need to eat. And then we need to drive back to the hotel.” It’s often past midnight once he finally lies down to sleep, and he’ll be up again by 6 a.m. “That’s what makes the decathlon so brutal. You don’t even have time to prepare for the second day.” On Aug. 3, he’ll face the 110-meter hurdles, discus throw, pole vault, javelin, and, finally, a 1,500-meter run at 9:45 p.m. — a grueling finish to the two-day competition.
After it’s all over, “I feel like I’ve been hit by 10 trucks,” says Victor. And he eats. “I probably eat 10,000 calories after a decathlon, as many as I can, whatever it is, burgers, pizza … I’m just craving food at that point.” He’ll also visit the cafeteria in the Olympic Village, where athletes can fuel up on familiar cuisine from their own countries. “I try foods from every different continent just to experience the different cultures.”
Will his third Olympics be the charm for Victor? “I’ve always believed that I’m good enough,” he says, “and to win an Olympic medal would feel so rewarding. It would mean that I proved myself right, that I bet on myself, and it paid off.” Whatever comes next for Victor, he will give it his all. “Being an athlete has taught me that with hard work you can accomplish almost anything. Because I wasn’t always the most athletic person growing up. I wasn’t always the best. But I always worked hard. I would train hard, I would work hard, I would sacrifice, and I feel like that’s how I live my life. And that’s how I approach business, that’s how I approach relationships: Work hard toward whatever it is you want to accomplish.”
Grenada’s denizens will turn out in droves in August to cheer Victor on to glory. “To win an Olympic medal coming from such a small country, I think it would mean a lot to every single boy, girl, dog, cat …” he laughs. “If it’s a gold medal or a bronze medal, they would celebrate it the same way. Just me being on the stage is an accomplishment.” Fort Worth will be cheering for him, too, hoping that the progress he’s made since living here is enough to put him on the podium. Yet in many ways, Lindon Victor has already won.
“Everybody doesn’t have these opportunities, especially coming from a small island like Grenada. I travel the world and compete in different countries for a living — and I get to live in Texas,” he says. “For me to be here, it’s truly a blessing.”
