Charlotte Christian sprinter is a state champ, and legally blind. ‘He’s all business’

Charlotte Christian junior Clete Saylor takes his place in the starting blocks like any other sprinter.

But there’s something that separates Saylor from the athletes he competes against.

He can’t see the finish line .

Yet being legally blind since birth hasn’t stopped Saylor from a life full of athletics, and it hasn’t stopped him from becoming one of the state’s fastest sprinters.

Saylor, a junior, enters the 2026 outdoor track and field season as recently-crowned champion in the 55-meter dash — in 6.50 seconds — at the North Carolina private schools’ indoor track and field meet.

He also finished fourth in the N.C. Independent Schools Athletic Association’s outdoor 100-meter dash championship last spring and ran anchor leg on his school’s first-place 4X100 relay team.

‘I just need to run fast’

“It’s something I was born with,” Saylor says of his eye condition. “And it’s something I’ve worked to deal with.”

Saylor was born with achromatopsia, a genetic condition which can cause a variety of optical problems. In his case, the main problem is low vision. He has 20/200 vision, which is legally blind. And unlike someone with short-sightedness, eyeglasses don’t solve the problem.

“I was born with this,” Saylor said. “But humans learn to adapt to a number of conditions, and I’ve learned to adapt to this.”

His coach, Ralph Jones, said Saylor has adapted quite well.

“He’s one of the most athletic members of this team,” he said. “He’s a very hard worker.”

Saylor said the biggest problem for him in track and field is not running the 100 meters.

“In sprints, the eye condition doesn’t really make a difference,” he said. “I just need to run fast.”

It’s his other events – the long jump, triple jump, and the relays – where the poor vision is a problem.

Running is easy, but relays are a challenge

“In the relays, it can get tricky,” he said. “I have to work out the number of steps I take, once my teammate yells, ‘Go!’ ”

Saylor attended Gaston Day through ninth grade and was a member of that school’s track and field team . He said that a mishap related to his eye condition in eighth grade cost his team in the state meet.

“We messed up the baton exchange,” he said. “I felt bad about that.”

In the triple jump and long jump, he can’t see the board that marks the jump point until his last few steps.

“I don’t see the board until I get pretty close,” Saylor said. “So from far away, the process is important.”

By “process,” he means learned to calculate the number of steps he’ll take on his approach.

Saylor describes himself as a “life-time sports junkie,” and he said his parents, Amanda and Rich, encouraged him to compete in sports. As a child, he played soccer and basketball. In fact, he made the school team in basketball at Gaston Day.

“Once I got to ninth grade, I started concentrating on track and field,” he said.

“But I tried a number of sports,” he said.

On a recent afternoon during practice at Charlotte Christian, he watched as a girls’ lacrosse team arrived for a scrimmage against his school.

“Now that,” he said, referring to lacrosse and the small ball that is whipped around by players, “is something I wouldn’t want to try – that, and baseball, I guess.”

Saylor is an honor student and is right at home talking about potential NCAA Basketball Tournament seedings, or world economics. He is quick with a smile, likes to crack jokes, and is popular with teammates.

“But make no mistake about it,” Jones, his coach, said. “He’s an athlete. When it’s time to compete, he’s all business.”

Saylor needs special accommodations in the classroom, and he is still working on a way to get a driver’s license. That will require some special corrective optical equipment and training on how to use it.

He acknowledged that life hasn’t always been easy.

“Some coaches didn’t want to believe in me,” he said. “When I came to Charlotte Christian, I didn’t even tell the coaches here. I guess they figured out pretty quickly about my condition, though.

“I didn’t want them to judge me. All I wanted was a fair chance.”

Now he has won a state championship and has run in prestigious events like the Penn Relays and the Adidas Nationals.

“I knew it would be hard for me, being in sports,” Saylor said.

“But,” he added, “at the end of the day, I didn’t want to be considered different.”