Team USA weightlifter trained in a garage to win Olympic medal

On Wednesday, Hampton Morris became the first American male to win an Olympic medal in weightlifting in 40 years . And he did so while training in a garage at his family's Georgia home.

Morris, 20, captured the bronze medal in the 61kg (134 lbs) event by hoisting a combined weight of 298 kg (657 pounds) to achieve a podium finish at the Paris Olympics. While American women had won weightlifting medals in the past two Games, a male U.S. weightlifter had not tasted Olympic glory since Mario Martinez (silver) and Guy Carlton (bronze) at the 1984 Los Angeles Games.

"It's amazing that I'm able to leave that kind of mark in the sport," Morris said of ending Team USA's 40-year drought via Fox 5 Atlanta . "I'm just in disbelief."

After his history-making feat, Morris revealed he never trained at a proper facility or received Olympic-level coaching. Instead, he continues to rely on his father, Tripp, to train him and his grandmother, Debbie, to drive him to physical therapy every week. The 20-year-old Georgia native does not own a driver's license because he lives a relatively low-key lifestyle.

"I don't have anywhere else to go, so I never had any real need to get my driver's license," he said.

Morris got emotional, thanking his mother, Anne Marie, and his sister, Etta, for making sacrifices and supporting him in his journey to the Olympiad. The young weightlifter revealed that his family converted a three-car garage into a gym when he turned 14 so he could pursue his athletic dreams.

Six years later, those sacrifices paid off. But Morris — the youngest U.S. weightlifter at the Olympics since Cheryl Haworth in 2000 — is just getting started and has set his sights on another medal when the Games return to Los Angeles in 2028.

"This whole experience has been so incredible. Now all I can hope for is that I can do even better in L.A. in four years," he concluded.