Kenneth Rooks also had a “must-see” moment before becoming a silver medalist in Paris on Wednesday.

In July 2023 while competing for BYU, Rooks fell during the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the USATF outdoor championships in Eugene, Oregon. He got back up and won the race — finishing with a career-best time of 8:16.78.

“It was life-altering,” Rooks told Doug Robinson of the Deseret News. “After the race I realized it meant something bigger. I knew how difficult it was to fall and win, especially at that level. It was not only cool, but I realized this was going to mean something. As I took my victory lap, people were thanking me for the lesson. They could learn from my race.”

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In August 2023, Rooks joined the Church News Podcast to talk about overcoming adversity — and finishing.

“I think the lesson that I learned is that it’s really important to just choose to keep going,” he said. “And I would definitely not be talking to you right now if I decided to just throw in the towel at that point. But I was able to accomplish a lot more than I thought that I would be able to, just because I decided to get up and keep going. And I made other decisions later on in the race to dig deep and to just move my way up and win, but it just all kind of started when I made that decision to get up and keep going.”

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Read the entire interview at TheChurchNews.com.

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