Kylah Schlott is a powerhouse in the pool, having a huge week at her very first USA Special Olympic games out in Minnesota.<\/p>\n
“Pulling the first PA gold was pretty amazing and I think it just pumped up the rest of the swimmers,” said her mom, Ivana Schlott.<\/p>\n
Schlott won the gold medal for 200-yard freestyle and bronze for the 100-yard individual medley.<\/p>\n
“I looked up at my last lap, not my last lap, but I looked up and I was like, Oh my God, I just won,” said Schlott<\/p>\n
Her mom added, “We were all crying, like her coach was crying and climbed up on the bleachers to talk to us. We were all crying.”<\/p>\n
Schlott has been involved with Special Olympics for 18 years. She also participates in gymnastics, soccer, and floorball. But, in the water is where she shines.<\/p>\n
“I kept her in swimming because she has epilepsy and I knew she needed to swim,” said her mother. “She has been two-years seizure free, so we just kept her in swimming. That’s what she loves.”<\/p>\n
Her mom joked, all the 5 am practices paid off.<\/p>\n
On her return from the games on Saturday, Reading Mayor Eddie Moran made sure she received a huge welcome home for her amazing accomplishments; with a community procession of fire trucks and police vehicles.<\/p>\n
In a statement Mayor Moran said: “I’ve had the privilege of being an assistant coach where Kylah has participated, and watching her earn this gold medal has been incredibly prideful. She represents everything Special Olympics stands for – hard work, perseverance, and heart. We wanted to make sure she received the welcome home she deserves.”<\/p>\n
Schlott said, “It feels really good, very excited.” Her mom says she’s so proud of her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kylah Schlott is a powerhouse in the pool, having a huge week at her very first USA Special…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[214,5523,128,130,129],"class_list":["post-229929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-carbon-county","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}