Jerome Singleton has degrees in engineering, maths and physics from two leading American universities, has completed research stints with the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (Cern) and the US space agency Nasa, and is planning to do a PhD in biomechanics.
At high school, he played basketball, track and American football; the latter well enough to be considered for college sports scholarships. And now he is a world champion sprinter.
So Singleton does not really do disability. His entire life is about ability, advantages not disadvantages, positives not negatives.
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Muhammad Ali had Joe Frazier, Magic Johnson had Larry Bird, Oscar Pistorius has Jerome Singleton. Or maybe it's the other way around - I'm the world champion, right?
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Jerome Singleton
Team USA sprinter
This attitude, coupled with talent and hard work, has helped Singleton turn what could have been a permanent excuse - the amputation of his right leg below the knee when he was 18 months old - into just another detail in a remarkable story.
"When I first started playing American football, I was a running back and they made me wear a volleyball knee pad so the other kids wouldn't get hurt," said the 26-year-old, explaining the dangers of his prosthetic leg.
"But then I switched to defence. My coach called me 'The Hammer'. I'm a very mild-mannered guy but when I put the pads on I felt invincible.
"The only time I would notice I was disabled was when my foot would break or somebody stepped on my leg and it popped off. I'd be like 'man, this wouldn't happen if I had another foot'.
"But there are benefits. I'm not going to sprain that ankle. Or if I dropped the iron on my foot, I'm not flinching. I've got a 'forever' shin pad!"
I met Singleton, born without a right fibula, at the Team USA Media Summit in Dallas in May, and that comment stayed with me for weeks.
It takes a special person to view such a loss as a "forever shin pad", but then it takes a special person to become a world champion.
That is what Singleton achieved when he beat Oscar Pistorius over 100m at the International Paralympic Committee's (IPC) Athletics World Championships in New Zealand last year.
That was the first defeat in the event for Pistorius, the most famous Paralympian in the world, for seven years.
But it had been coming. Singleton was only 0.03 seconds behind the South African at the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing and their friendly rivalry could be one of the highlights at London 2012.
SOURCE BBC NEWS