Tri-Cities ‘Ninja Warrior’ competitor to represent Team U.S. in 2022 Invictus Games
A retired West Richland U.S. Army Green Beret and athlete will represent Team U.S. at the 2022 Invictus Games starting this weekend in the Netherlands.
Fred Lewis, a former U.S. special operations command staff sergeant, will compete in adaptive track and field events, indoor rowing, powerlifting and sitting volleyball. It’s just the latest hurdle for the “American Ninja Warrior” competitor and “Gold Rush” TV personality.
He’s one of 62 athletes representing the U.S. in the “international adaptative sporting event for wounded, injured and sick servicemen and women, both serving and veteran.” The weeklong games start Saturday, April 16.
The events help “inspire recovery, support rehabilitation and generate a wider understanding and respect of all those who serve their country,” says the event website.
More than 500 competitors from 19 countries will participate in 10 different sports this year in The Hague.
Prince Harry David, the Duke of Sussex, who served in the British Army for about a decade, launched the games in 2014 and remains a patron of the governing foundation.
Military family
Lewis couldn’t be reached by the Herald this week, but a 2016 profile published by the Department of Defense underscored his family’s history of service. and what drives him personally.
“My whole family was in the military,” Lewis said at the time. “My dad was in the Navy. My uncle and my brother were in the Army. My uncle was in the Navy. My family’s been serving in everything, actually, back to the Revolutionary War.”
Lewis joined the Army in 1997 as a Korean forces communicator and linguist when he was 19.
After basic training, he attended the Defense Language Institute and learned Korean, Sarah Hauck, command information chief with the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command HQ, wrote in an email.
Lewis eventually made his way to the Army Special Forces, and after an 11-year career transitioned into the National Guard Special Forces unit in Buckley, Pierce County. He was later medically discharged.
Sniper attack
Lewis suffered a traumatic brain injury after taking a sniper bullet to the helmet in 2008 during a tour in Afghanistan.
That hasn’t stopped him from overcoming adversity, medaling at the Department of Defense Warrior Games, or living life to the fullest.
“Following the military, Fred tried his hand at a lot of different jobs but it was participating in adaptive sports that taught him to fight. It was through health and fitness that Fred found his passion in gold mining. Creating Misfits Mining, Fred hires disabled veterans and gives them a shot at becoming gold miners in hopes to give them a new purpose in life,” Hauck wrote in an email.
His mining ventures led to a casting role on the Discovery Channel reality television show “Gold Rush.”
Lewis was also a competitor on the obstacle course show American Ninja Warrior, and was a coach for the Hanford High Falcons boys wrestling team.
