Défi sportif's new ambassador hopes to inspire next generation

On a warm, sunny summer day in 2005, years before the thought of racing competitively ever crossed her mind, Marie-Claude Molnar went for a long bike ride along a paved road south of Montreal.

On a whim, she changed her planned route.

"Instead of going to Hemmingford, which was where I was originally going, I decided to change direction and go to the United States because it's something cool, right?" Molnar recalls.

That decision nearly cost Molnar her life. She got to the border, snapped a photo and then headed north, along Highway 221.

She never saw the vehicle that hit her but was told later it was travelling about 110 km/h.

Molnar recounts her story calmly as she sits in a quiet café in the Longueuil borough of Saint-Hubert on Montreal's South Shore, the smile never leaving her face.

"I ended up in the windshield, which is made of glass, and glass cuts," she explained, showing the long scars on her biceps. "So that's how I almost lost both of my arms."

Molnar's life changed in an instant. She knows she might have died, but for some "magic" that happened that day. Shortly after the crash, a trained paramedic who happened by in a passing vehicle rushed to her aid.

"He had to put his fingers into the arteries to stop the blood," Molnar said. "Apparently the paramedics who took me in charge called him later on to say that I was deceased because I had just lost so much blood. So he was able to save my life."

Molnar spent the next three weeks in hospital.

"I had a light head trauma because I was wearing a protective helmet, of course, and also partial amputations of both arms and maybe like 20-ish fractures in my left leg."

Molnar's physical injuries did not change her passion for cycling.

Getting back on the bike was one