BIRKDALE State School year 4 student Rylee Grier-Stralow is Redland City's newest golden girl.
The 10-year-old, who has an intellectual disability, has won a swag of medals after competing at three state and national swimming championships last month.
In the space of nine days, Rylee bagged 10 gold, a silver and a bronze competing at the Special Olympics State Championships at Caloundra, then the national Swimming Championships Australia in Adelaide before returning home for the State Multi-class Championships.
At the Special Olympics State Championships, she won four gold in the 50m backstroke, freestyle, breaststroke and medley and a silver in the relay event.
Rylee won gold when she was recruited to make up the numbers in the Tasmanian team at the Nationals in Adelaide. Here she also won a bronze medal in the medley relay. Rylee swam the breaststroke leg for the winning Tassie team.
As if that wasn't enough, Rylee was back in action in the pool at Chandler for the McDonalds State Multi-class championship, where she won four gold and was named state champion in backstroke, breaststroke, freestyle and in the medley event.
Now she is ranked sixth in Australia in her multi-class age group in 50m backstroke and breaststroke and seventh in freestyle.
Her wins were sweet victories for Rylee's 53-year-old mum Robyn Grier-Stralow, who has devoted her life to tending to her three disabled daughters at her Wellington Point home.
Rylee's older half-sisters Haylee Austin, 30, and Chelsea Austin, 26, who both have a genetic disease so rare that they are the only people in the world with this disorder, known as Melas. The are both visually impaired and confined to wheelchairs.
For Rylee to train up to 10 times a week at Redlands College pool and compete at swimming competitions outside Brisbane, the family has had to make sacrifices.
Mrs Grier-Stralow and her husband Robert Stralow have called on her 82-year-old dad, Brian Grier, to help out when she is away from home.
"It was lovely to see all Rylee's hard work pay off when she was standing up on the podium getting her medals," Mrs Grier-Stralow said.
She said she had to apply for funding assistance through Commonwealth Respite and Carelink to pay for a carer to come and stay with the girls when they were away at championship events.
Rylee's next major event will the 2014 Georgina Hope Swimmers Foundation Australian Age and MC Age Championships in Sydney.
