Paris Paralympics: Holly Warn, you make every single one of us proud

Holly Warn is 15, Australia’s youngest Paralympian in Paris. Her proud dad tells of a girl with ‘a big engine’ and ‘a lot of heart’.

Paralympic swimmer Holly Warn at training on the Gold Coast.

Holly Warn was seven. We have a unique earnestness when we’re seven, right? Holly announced with the conviction of the most ­irrepressible of seven-year-olds that she wanted to become a Paralympian.

“Not everyone was a believer that it could be done,” says her ­father, John. “She’s proved them wrong. Paris has been her goal for years. She’s made a lot of sacrifices for a kid her age. Worked hard over her lifetime.”

Now Holly is 15. We have a flowering appreciation for life and opportunities when we’re 15, right? It’s with the utmost thankfulness of the most enthusiastic of 15-year-olds that Holly becomes the youngest member of the Australian Paralympic team for next week’s Paris Games.

Holly receiving her first Australian Paralympic swimming team cap in Chartres, France, this week.

Holly with Australian Paralympic teammate Paige Leonhardt.

“I’m so grateful and proud to be representing Australia,” she tells The Weekend Australian. “And I’m also so proud to be showing young kids with disabilities that anything is possible.

“Growing up different has been hard at times but staying determined and focusing on my strengths, which for me is swimming, has kept me on track to realise this dream to be an Australian Paralympian.

“To all the people who have helped me, supported me, encouraged me, I owe you all the biggest thank you.”

This is the sort of yarn that makes a Paralympics like nothing else in the sporting world. You cannot manufacture life stories like the ones we’re going to cover for the next fortnight.

Holly had a stroke in-utero. At four months, she was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Hydrotherapy helped, which led to her doing laps before she could walk. “Swimming found her,” John says.

Holly with her proud parents John and Marg before flying to Paris.

Dad is a mover and shaker. He was chairman of Cricket NSW and Destination NSW, and held senior roles with Accor and Westfield, before his current role as CEO of Experience Gold Coast. I’m guessing this fantastically successful fellow must have felt infuriatingly helpless when Holly’s condition was confirmed – but no matter. You push on for your kids.

While Paralympic athletes are saluted for overcoming adversities, raise a glass to the families. The mums, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, grandparents and dads, like John Warn, doing everything he can, wrapping a loving arm around his daughter and telling her if she wants to become a Paralympian … go for your life.

Holly’s form of cerebral palsy is left side hemiplegia. She looks healthy but her left side is weaker, less co-ordinated and fatigues faster. She will swim in the S7 classification in Paris.

“Sport has given Holly purpose,” John says. “A lot in her life has been difficult. Not just in the physical sense, but in the educational setting. Sport was an ­avenue in which she could experience success. She was good at it. She showed early signs of talent in swimming when she got to race among her people in para swimming. She just loved it, and team sports weren’t available for kids with disabilities.”

John says: “Playing in mainstream teams like netball usually resulted in no one passing you the ball or lots of time on the bench, which was really tough. Individual sport was the only pathway.”

Holly with cricketer Shane Watson in 2017.

Holly and Olympic swimming champion Emma McKeon in 2018.

Holly’s mum is Marg. I suspect she deserves a medal. Big sister is 17-year-old Elle; little sister is 12-year-old Lani; littler brother Jim is eight. The Warns lived in Manly, on Sydney’s northern beaches, before moving to the Gold Coast in 2019.

“It all started when doctors told us to get Holly in the water and keep her moving,” John says. “Swimming in her younger years was the most challenging. She didn’t swim symmetrically or as aesthetically as other kids her age.

“Her left side doesn’t work as well as her right, which really held her back in progressing through the learn-to-swim levels. She didn’t look like everyone else in the water. She never complained but it was tough, very tough at times.”

The Warn family on the Gold Coast, from left, Elle, Jim, father John, Lani, mother Marg, Holly.

The Paralympics start on Thursday. Mum, Dad, big sister, little sister and littler brother will be in Paris to watch Holly contest the 100m and 400m freestyle S7 events – as will her maternal grandfather Michael Morgan, the Olympic rower who won a silver medal at the 1968 Mexico Games.

“Holly has a big engine and competes with a lot of heart and determination,” John says. “It’s the start of a new chapter for her. She’s right where she wants to be.

“At home we talk a lot about, what do you want your legacy to be? To leave para sport and the world better than you found it. Be an advocate for inclusion, opportunities and recognition. Inspire the next generation of kids with disabilities to have a go in sport.

“Holly’s catch cry is, ‘Being a good person is more important than being a good athlete.’ We are so proud to be her parents. We’re the lucky ones.”