SAN DIEGO — The 2020 Tokyo Olympics may have wrapped, but the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games are currently going on.

Top athletes who also have a disability are in Tokyo competing for a spot on the podium. Joel Gomez, a runner from Encinitas, will be hitting his mark, getting ready to go and taking off.

Gomez, who is visually impaired, can clock about a 4 minute, 13-second mile.

“I love track. It’s honestly just a pure guts race,” he said.

Before running, soccer was Gomez's thing. He wanted to be like soccer great Lionel Messi.

“I quit soccer when I was 10 just because the ball started moving a lot faster,” he said.

But it wasn't that Gomez couldn’t keep up with the ball. He’s always been fast and says it just started getting harder to see the ball. He was born with what’s called blue cone monochromacy.

As he got older, Gomez's vision got worse. He is now legally blind and severely color blind.

“So for example, if I was running on a green field and there’s orange cones on the grass, I wouldn’t be able to see where they are,” he said.

Without being able to see the ball, soccer wasn’t really an option. So Gomez's parents suggested track and field. He gave it a go, and that’s when his running career began. Then he started winning competitions.

"I’ve definitely been motivated throughout my life," he said. "I think a huge factor that played into that was my parents. They never treated me like I had a disability."

Gomez's mom, Rynn Whitley Gomez, says she and her husband never discouraged their son from trying things.

"Because I knew that someday somebody might tell him, 'No, you can’t do it,'" said Whitley Gomez. "And he would say, 'I already did that. So I know I can do it.'"

Whitley Gomez has seen her son accomplish many things both at school and on the track. Gomez is headed to Purdue University in the fall. But before he heads there, he’s making a stop in Tokyo, having earned a place on the U.S. Paralympic team. Holding back tears, Whitley Gomez said she is "incredibly proud."

"He’s worked so hard," she said. "So it’s a good thing.”

While emotional now, Whitley Gomez added that she'll be ready to cheer on her son on at the Games, which she will be escorting her son to.

"I’m not supposed to cheer," she said. "I’m supposed to clap very loudly. But I will be cheering very loudly."

Before he took off to Tokyo, Gomez got some more miles in. He also squeezed in a bit of music, which is his other passion. He teaches people to play the ukulele. While he says he does it to share his love of music with others, it’s also a skill that helps keep him on the track.

“If you ask 10 runners, I’d say nine out of the 10 runners would probably say that they sing to themselves a song. So definitely, music does play a huge part in running,” he said.

Music helps Gomez keep the beat on the track, which looks red and white to someone without a visual impairment, but black and white to Gomez.

Gomez says that no matter what your own challenge are, “All you have to do is just put the hard work in.”

Gomez is now in Tokyo representing Team U.S.A. in what will be his biggest race yet. He has competed in the 1500-meter race and placed 10th. Up next is the 400-meter race. Sept. 1 is when the prelims will be, and the final is Sept. 2.