Xiao Team USA

Yan Xiao Gong

"Yes there were times I'm sure you knew, when I bit off more than I could chew. But through it all, when there was doubt, I ate it up, and spit it out. I faced it all and stood tall, and did it my way."

“… A medal-powerhouse in a class by himself.”

YanXiao Gong—the single most decorated Paralympic shooter in the history of the United States, journeyed from overcoming a life-altering spinal cord injury obtained in his high school freshman year.

Xiao has achieved unparalleled success after his injury. He is the first Paralympic pistol medalist in 40 years, besting the 1984 bronze, holds the distinction of being the highest-achieved individual Paralympic medalist in the entire U.S. Shooting history since 1896 across all events and disciplines.

He is the reigning World Champion, Pan-American Champion, World Cup Champion, Pan-American & U.S. 5-Record Breaker/Holder, Grand Prix Champion, National Champion, etc.—“a medal-powerhouse in a class by himself.”

His winding and remarkable journey is a testament to the Olympic and Paralympic Spirits, through his monumental resilience, perseverance, and enormous drive unparalleled.

A charted journey never planned.

Driven by a profound belief in the power of human spirit to transcend limitations, he embarked on a remarkable journey the world was yet to see.

Fascinated by extreme sports, from rock climbing and scuba diving to skiing and rafting, Xiao embraced his new and welcoming country and language.

However, when surfing during his high school freshman year, an extremely rare spinal cord injury occurred. 33 cases were officially recorded in the world, a rare case of “Surfers’ Myelopathy”. Despite the prognosis that confined him to a wheelchair from some of the most advanced institutions, Xiao demonstrated monumental resilience. Through sheer grit, sweat, and perhaps something else, over the subsequent 5 years, he defied all expectations.

he dragged himself with a walker for miles every day, on the sandy beaches of Malibu, in the countless parking lots of shopping malls, visiting far too many trainers and therapists... His journey through recovery was long and grueling, and still ongoing, then, he actually began to walk.

He has in fact over the subsequent years, created a path through a medically uncharted wilderness, defying expectations from doctors, physical therapists, and friends.

He transformed himself into a documentary filmmaker and a Paralympian. This journey forged an unwavering dedication and a lifelong commitment to turning adversities into opportunities.

He credits this time a factor to his later athletic success on the world stage, culminated in the distinction of becoming the most decorated U.S. Paralympic shooting athlete in history, a testament to his perseverance. As a Paralympic shooter representing Team USA, Xiao strives to push past limits and honor every challenge that has shaped his journey.

His true mission as he put it: "... lies within the indispensable values that we pass down through generations the spirit of the Olympics and Paralympics..." as he is committed to help young generations of Paralympic-Hopefuls and children with disabilities, to inspire, demolish, and to transcend physical boundaries.

“… I thought I was the chosen one,”

“I’ve always grown up with guns, wherever and whenever,” Xiao boasts, “I’ve always been good with guns,” he found himself earning a quota for the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games at his first international competition while majoring Directing and Production Design at the Los Angeles Film School in 2019, he was called by the U.S. National Team to compete at the 2019 Sydney World Championship, only then realizing his national team status, acquired just months earlier from his performance, which he championed.

Brandishing his childhood collection while navigating a new country.

After seeing the gap between himself and the world's elite athletes at the World Championships, and returning home with a quota for the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games, he was determined to live up to the spot he'd earned and make history in Tokyo. He moved to the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Training Center in Colorado Springs to train full-time as a resident-athlete.

In the following months, he found himself besting the best in the nation on both Able-Bodied and the Paralympic sides, encouraged, he then personally swept 4 medals (3 individual medals and 1 team medal) at a single World Cup competing with the top athletes in the world just two months before the Tokyo Paralympic Games, it was a crucial warm-up and final rehearsal before the Games, and everything seemed to be falling into place for Xiao on his way to Tokyo.

“… Invincible in advance…”

Big Man

“… I still do,”

First competition day—10m Air Pistol, in the midst of a heatstroke and skin allergy, Xiao found himself at the 9th place, being 1 point away from the final with a 9.9 on his last shot, he quickly gathered himself up and stored away his air pistol to prepare for his confident and definitely favorite event—the 25m rapid-firing Sport Pistol.

Second competition day—25m Sport Pistol, everything seemed to be going Xiao's way. He was comfortably in 3rd place in the last few series, well within the top eight final qualifiers. But as he finished that series and lowered his firearm, confusion struck: his monitor showed only 4 of his 5 shots. 10 points potentially vanished. Turning to his coach, he saw the audience staring back as the jury confirmed the worst—one shot had gone to an adjacent target as he mistook that his own. Despite an impressive display of nearly all-10s in the remaining series he battled, fate played another trick. Xiao ultimately finished just 2 points shy of 8th place.

Third competition day—50m Free Pistol, Xiao finished 16th, which he notably appreciated the “humanitarianism of the absence of the emotional ride”.

After the devastating blow of Tokyo 2020 and the loss of a loved one happened almost simultaneously, Xiao's performance began to slide with the volume and intensity he carried on. He resisted acknowledging the factors working against him, instead intensifying an already overloaded training regimen. Desperately trying to immerse himself in shooting, he found his scores only worsened. Nearly a year and a half later, at what he sarcastically called his "Glorious Peak of the Mariana Trench”—when he was shooting close to 12 hours a day—he was almost performing at the level of a junior athlete, his body and mind exhausted…

It wasn’t for another half of a year before he quietly admitted to himself, he needed to step back, both physically and emotionally. As he forced himself that, “the feel,” as he put it, that once always “hovered”, definitely seemed to have started coming back in the years followed.