Paralympian Marie Van Liere has been resilient since birth.

The Virginia-native was born prematurely, and shortly after she entered the world, doctors discovered that she was partially sighted due to receiving too much oxygen. This, however, was no deterrent to the future world champion.

Growing up, Van Liere’s childhood was not unsimilar from the others in her neighborhood. She attended the same schools — though in elementary school she was in a special program with other children lacking full vision — participated in the same activities and played the same sports as every other active child. While this may not seem out of the ordinary today, Van Liere shared that the attitude around disabilities was vastly different then.

“I love my father, and it was the times that he was in, but when I was a kid, if it had been up to him, I would have been in an institution,” she said. “My mom was called abusive because she let me do things at times. I walked to my piano lessons; that was ‘abusive’ — no, it’s not.” 

Despite it all, Van Liere picked up swimming at age 8, and never looked back.

“I had always loved the pool, I loved to swim,” she said. “When I first started, breaststroke was (my favorite), because I was a disaster in freestyle. As time went on, my favorite stroke really (became) butterfly, but backstroke was my best stroke.”

Van Liere did, in fact, dominate in backstroke at the start of her swimming career, winning her first gold medal in the stroke at age 10. She swam through high school, and during her senior year, was made aware of the world of blind athletics through a news article. 

“Of course, I looked at the times, and thought, ‘well, I can beat them,’” she said. 

A volunteer coach active in her local swimming association saw her potential and offered to train her for free; this is when Van Liere “started swimming more seriously.” She continued her athletic career in college at James Madison University, though eventually “slacked down a bit” due to her challenging chemistry and computer science double major. Still, she remained under the instruction of her coach from home, and following a stellar showcase at nationals, Van Liere qualified for the 1980 Summer Paralympics held in the Netherlands. 

“Listening to all the people walking around outside and hearing the different languages, I (thought), ‘Wow, I’m out of the country.’ It (was) just interesting not to hear English,” Van Liere said. “I got to meet (the other athletes); they had other disabilities there too, amputees, cerebral palsy, all the different ones. It was kind of neat because it seemed like the people I talked to about their disabilities would rather have their own than somebody else’s.”

This was far from the last time that Van Liere would travel abroad for athletics. She went to Sweden, Canada, and even qualified again for the Paralympics in 1984, held in New York, where one of her favorite swimming memories hails from. 

“Setting a world record in the 50 breaststroke in New York – it was kind of neat,” Van Liere said. “Standing on the stand and getting the gold, the national anthem playing behind you. Oh, that’s so sweet.”

At age 64, the Cedarhurst of Tesson Heights resident still swims, participating in the Special Olympics since her move to St. Louis in 2023. She also still actively bowls, another piece of Van Liere’s athletic journey that she began at a young age.

“I started bowling when I was 13. My sister started the year before, and I desperately wanted to do it just because she was doing it,” Van Liere said. “I was so horrible, they put me with the little kids.” 

This didn’t last forever, though, and soon Van Liere was playing in city- and state-wide tournaments.

“I used to bowl, like, every day of the week. I think one year I bowled nine leagues. I loved it. In fact, that’s kind of what got me out of swimming, I was starting to get more interested in bowling,” Van Liere said.

She continued bowling in and post-college “in a bunch of big leagues,” though her desire to take her talents across the ocean never ceased. Finally, her dreams were answered.

“I always wanted to do international,” Van Liere said. “I talked to a group of the blind bowlers about it once, and nothing happened forever in a day. Finally, I heard that they were trying to set up rules for international blind bowling competitions. I jumped at it, so I went to England in ’98 or ’99. It was a competition, and we were setting rules.”

She and the group later traveled to Singapore for another competition and to set rules. After lots of hard work, the first International Blind Bowlers’ World Championship Ten-Pin Bowling Tournament was held in Finland in 2002. Following its success, tournaments were held in Orlando and Australia — Van Liere’s last international competition.

Though she’s traveled across the globe to compete, Van Liere’s most memorable bowling moment took place on American soil in the infamous Sin City.

“I’d never won one of the tournaments, not locally. I barely made the cut (to make it to Las Vegas),” Van Liere said. “I bowled a really good series in the semis, and I got in the finals … That was intense. We ended up tied at the end of the game. I had to have a ninth and tenth frame roll-off, which I think God wanted me to have that win, because I don’t think I could have done it any other way.”

Though Marie still bowls, she does less than she did in Virginia for a variety of reasons: lack of access to transportation, lack of accessibility in general and people’s own prejudices.

“There’s a lot of people that don’t want to bowl with me because I can’t see the pins, because I’m legally blind. That’s hurtful,” she said. “I think the bowling world does not like blind bowlers, the sighted world doesn’t. I actually had somebody at one of the club tournaments tell me, ‘You know what, it’s bad to get beat by a woman, much less one that doesn’t see well.’”

Still, Van Liere remains positive.

“Just think of how blessed you are,” she said. “I have the vision I have; it’s not the best, but I tell you what, I’ve seen so many people a lot worse off than me.”

As for advice to young athletes, Van Liere shared a few tidbits from her decades-long athletic career. 

“I used to get so upset when I did badly. It would ruin my day. Now I’m just like, ‘I did the best I can.’ That’s all I can do,” she said. “If you go out there and you do your best, you’ve won, whether you get that medal or ribbon or not.”