Liberty alumnus and USA Triathlon coach guides Paralympian to gold medal in Paris

Former Liberty University NCAA Division I Track & Field athlete and Club Sports triathlete Parker Spencer (’12), had the privilege of coaching Team USA triathlete Chris Hammer to a gold medal at the Paralympics Summer Games held earlier this month in Paris.

Spencer served as head coach of the Club Sports Triathlon, Cycling, and Men’s Swimming programs from 2015-18 before being hired by USA Triathlon to launch its Project Podium in August 2018. He was named the USA Triathlon Olympic Coach of the Year in 2023 and inducted to the Club Sports Hall of Fame in February.

Spencer started training Hammer, who was born with an underdeveloped left hand, in 2021. Hammer had placed fourth in the men’s Paralympics in Tokyo that year and in Rio, Brazil, in 2016.

“Chris was the first Paralympian we accepted into Project Podium,” Spencer said of Hammer, 38, who holds a Ph.D. in Sports Psychology from the University of Utah. “We decided to go outside our normal demographic of 18–23-year-old Olympic hopefuls and add a Paralympic medal hopeful to the team. He is really smart, highly educated, and still had this big desire to win a medal at the Paralympic Games. After Tokyo, he made the decision to move from West Virginia to Arizona to train with me and Project Podium, and three years later, he won a gold medal.”

Spencer has also trained a visually impaired para triathlete — 19-year-old Owen Cravens who finished fourth in the PTVI category in Paris — for the past two years out of the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., and Lake Placid, N.Y., and served as an assistant coach for Carson Clough, a PTS4 silver medalist in Paris who lost his leg in a wakeboarding accident.

“(Hammer) wanted to be at an elite training environment with us, to work alongside all of the guys in Project Podium training for the Los Angeles Olympics,” Spencer said. “We were the first group in the U.S. to have able-bodied and Para triathletes training together.”

He said the change in environment for Hammer — moving his wife and two young daughters to Arizona to train for his first Paralympic medal — made a world of difference.

“Just this year, he started winning races in that (PTS5) category when the main competition was there,” Spencer said. “When he won a big event in Japan earlier this year, I told him afterward, ‘I really think you can not only get a medal in the Games but win overall and get a gold.’ He didn’t believe it yet, but (just over) a month ago, after a training session when he realized he was hitting times he had never hit in his life, that was the first time he believed he could win.”

One of the last out of the Seine River for the 750-meter swim, 1 minute, 20 seconds behind the frontrunner, Hammer made up precious time in the 20-kilometer cycling stage before surging ahead of Brazilian Ronan Cordeiro with about a kilometer left in the 5K run, his strongest leg, to win the men’s PTS5 para triathlon by 17 seconds.

“The crowds in Paris were just insane; there were an incredible number of people there watching the race,” Spencer said. “Paris sold over 2 million tickets, the most ever for a Paralympics event and the most people I have seen at any triathlon. Watching (Hammer) cross the finish line in first, it was really cool and a huge sense of relief that we were actually able to pull it off, for him to win gold and do it in epic fashion.”

With the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Los Angeles in sight, Hammer’s breakthrough gold medal has inspired Spencer to keep training his triathletes with renewed purpose and passion.

“He helped me realize what we’re trying to do, to wake up every day trying to win a medal,” Spencer said, noting that his fulfillment and joy comes through the process and the journey as much as hearing the national anthem played with one of his triathletes on the podium. “The medal doesn’t matter as much as looking back at everything it took for him to get it and how much fun it was. We knew that his journey was probably over, that he accomplished the goal and was going to move onto the next phase of his life.”

Hammer is one of only two U.S. men to strike gold at either the Paralympic or Olympic Games since triathlon was introduced as an official sport in 2000, joining Paralympian Brad Snyder, who topped the podium in Tokyo in 2021. Hammer’s medal, one of eight captured by U.S. para triathletes on Sept. 2, helped Spencer and Team USA hit the target USA Triathlon had set for Paris.

“(USAT) gave us a goal of getting nine medals in Paris, so with the silver medal in the mixed relay that Team USA won in the Olympics, we matched the quota we needed to hit,” Spencer said.

USA Triathlon hosted a private ceremony in a hotel near Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower, honoring Spencer with the Order of Ikkos medal, given by each medal-winning athlete to a coach or someone they deemed significant in their journey to the podium.

“Watching Chris win in Paris was one of the proudest moments of my coaching career,” Spencer said. “I saw firsthand the countless hours of effort he dedicated to reaching this goal. I couldn’t be happier for him, and it has been the honor of a lifetime to coach him over the past three years.”

Now, Spencer is all the more determined to train the next Olympic medalist.

“I hope to have three of my guys in L.A.,” he said, noting he is currently coaching seven men under 23 years old who are ranked in the top 50 in the world. “That is a significant number, four more athletes than any other country. We’re well on track and right where we need to be.”

Spencer, who runs Project Podium out of Tempe, Ariz., during the fall, winter, and spring months and out of Park City, Utah, over the summer, has remained in Europe since the Paralympics, traveling with team members along with his wife, Kristina, and their two young daughters. They witnessed World Triathlon Circuit races in London and Valencia, Spain, before heading back to Nice, France, and on to Molveno, Italy, for the Terra World Championships. From there, they will travel to Toulouse, France, and the World Championships in Spain and Rome, Italy, before heading to Saudi Arabia in early November and ending the year in Miyazaki, Japan, on Nov. 10.

As he did during his seasons coaching at Liberty, Spencer said he focuses as much on personal and character development with his triathletes as the swimming, cycling, and running techniques and conditioning.

“A big part of my job is helping young men grow up and learn how to take care of themselves,” he said. “I really get to invest in them and be the first person responsible for them outside of their parents, since they’re all college age, and Kristina plays a big role in that. It’s everything from making sure they’re not just physically ready, but mentally and spiritually.”