IN IT TO WIN IT
by Mark Miller | photos courtesy of Karen Molnar
S
he’s only 16 and has dealt with cerebral palsy since birth. Yet Olivia Molnar hasn’t let that challenge stop her from succeeding in sports. The Colony High School junior proved that this year when she was selected to the U.S. Paralympic Triathlon Junior/U23 Development Program. She learned about it in an email while sitting at an area restaurant and immediately started screaming. Originally from Valparaiso, Indiana, the Molnars lived in India for nearly five years before moving to Castle Hills in early 2018 when Olivia’s father, Jacob, was transferred here for work. “The whole family has been swimmers [including sister Paz, a 7th-grader at Killian Middle School],
“USAT LOOKS FOR SWIMMERS BECAUSE IT’S EASIER TO TRAIN A SWIMMER TO BIKE AND RUN THAN IT IS TEACHING A RUNNER TO SWIM.” and she has always competed against able-bodied people,” said their mother, Karen. “From birth to eighth grade, she never participated in para sports. We weren’t plugged in, being that we were overseas.” Olivia was introduced to paralympic sports soon after moving to Texas by Darlene Hunter, a 2016 paralympic gold and 2020 bronze medal-winning basketball player who is also a professor at the
20 | LIFE IN CASTLE HILLS | NOVEMBER 2021
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