Far more important than her on-track achievements are the riches she gives to those around her every day, and every step she takes to do so.
Every step, that is, since Jan. 23, 2001, when Holmes slipped while attempting to board a SEPTA train at 30th Street Station, falling into the path of an unforgiving, 40-ton train car.
When the metal wheels severed Holmes' left foot at her ankle, she could have curled up, given up.
She could have succumbed during the torturous 30 minutes it took for rescuers to free her.
She could have surrendered the fateful moment when doctors at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania deemed it necessary to amputate her leg below the left knee.
Holmes did not give in to those moments any more than she surrenders to the stereotype of the helpless invalid.
"Sure, your life changes, but I don't want people to treat me like I'm handicapped," she said.
And why should they when she did not from the moment reality hit her as she lay in her hospital bed?
Give up?
"Don't lay here like you're dead; if you're dead, you'd be dead," Holmes recalls thinking.
Rather, Holmes felt fortunate - to be alive. "If being blessed is a fortune, then I am fortunate," the serious, soft-spoken woman said.
Holmes used that spirit not only to survive, but, with the help of a prostheses and a dream, to thrive. She became what she'd always wanted to be - a person of stature in athletics.
Holmes did that by reviving her career, this time as a sprinter in competitions for athletes with disabilities.
She took to her new calling so quickly that she won a silver medal at the 2002 World Championships. Now a renowned Paralympian, she holds the world records for her classification in the 100, 200 and 400 meters.
