Pick-me-up for Olympic weightlifter

Roach's travails have lifted her spirits

By Clay Latimer, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published July 31, 2008 at 8:56 p.m.

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Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images

Melanie Roach says motherhood has helped her as she prepares for the Beijing Olympics. "Having the opportunity to be a mom has balanced me out and made me a more complete athlete," she says.

Melanie Roach felt horrible. Worn down. Under pressure. Overwhelmed by chronic back pain.

In fact, she felt exactly the way a mother of three can't feel heading into another busy week.

But that only left her with a bigger problem, when her young autistic son, Drew, threw another violent fit, shrieking, flailing and dumping food everywhere until she wrestled him to the floor of their home in Washington state.

Another woman might have sagged under that kind of stress, unable to carry her burdens and bruises through another day.

But Roach, 33, is an unusually strong woman. So strong, in fact, that she can lift twice her body weight, the first American woman to accomplish that feat.

So strong, she'll join the U.S. weightlifting team at the Beijing Olympics, eight years after a herniated disk supposedly ended her career.

So strong, she runs a business, family and the campaigns for her husband, Dan, a four-term state representative, and still finds time to pump iron every afternoon.

"When I go to the gym, I see it as a privilege," she said. "It's a moment to myself. I'm not chasing those three little kids, getting them ready for school, doing laundry, running a business, making meals, helping with homework, getting everybody in bed and helping Drew with all his needs.

"Having the opportunity to be a mom has balanced me out and made me a more complete athlete."

Former gymnast

Roach, standing 5-foot-1 and weighing 117 pounds, with a penchant for fuchsia-painted fingernails, could pass for a petite gymnast, which she was until a serious elbow injury in high school forced her out of the sport.

Finding a new passion in weightlifting, she finished third at the 1994 American Open in her competitive debut, won the first of seven national titles three years later and in 1998, became the first American woman to lift more than twice her body weight in competition, hoisting 242 1/2 pounds.

Roach was a virtual lock for the 2000 Olympic team, a potential star for the sport because of her articulate charm.

But a couple of months before the trials, she heard a popping sound in her back -- a herniated disk. Unable to stand up straight, warned by a doctor that she could end up in a wheelchair, Roach tried to compete in the trials but finally quit. Sitting in the stands, she broke down crying as the Olympic team was decided.

"I was completely devastated," she said.

During the next five years, Roach and her husband opened a large gymnastics center and decided to start a family. Ethan was born in 2002, Drew 15 months later and Camille in 2005.

Several attempts at reviving her weightlifting career failed, so she settled into a traditional life, focusing on her children and business. But everything changed at a Christmas party in 2004.

"My mother-in-law started to watch Drew closely," she said. "(He) didn't interact with the other kids much. He didn't make eye contact or answer to his name. He was in his own little world.

"My mother-in-law stayed up all night reading about autism, and the next morning - Christmas Day -- she came to our house, put her arm around me and said, 'I think Drew has autism.' "

Turning point

The Roaches received a formal diagnosis five months later -- a devastating turn for Melanie, who knelt and prayed at her son's bedside every night, increasingly overwhelmed.

"There was a long time after that where I was really sad, just very depressed," she said. "You realize all of the expectations you have for your child may not happen. He might not graduate from high school, he might not ever date a girl, or go to school dances. He might not go to college. We're very active Mormons, and he'll probably never go on a mission. He may not get married or have children of his own. It's almost like you're mourning the loss of a child when they're diagnosed with autism.

"He's a sweet little kid. Really just a sweetheart. But I know there will always be a part of him that we will never be able to get to."

The Roaches must monitor Drew 24 hours a day, put keys, vitamins, drugs and food behind lock and key and control him during his outbursts, which requires all the strength Melanie once reserved for international meets.

At one point, Roach was so despondent that she turned to her bishop for guidance.

"I was basically complaining. 'This isn't what I signed up for,' " Melanie said. "He basically looked at me and said, 'Yes, you did sign up for this. This is exactly what you signed up for.' . . . That was a huge turning point for me. I started letting go of trying to make Drew better and started enjoying him for who he is.

"I still hope for a miracle," she said. "But I don't dwell on it."

Living her dream

In spring 2005, shortly after Drew's diagnosis, Roach woke her husband and told him she wanted to try to make the 2008 Olympic team. Several months into intensive training, she was sidelined again with back pain.

A magnetic resonance imaging exam revealed she had free fragments embedded in her nerves, so in October 2006, she underwent a rare surgery to repair her damaged disk and remove bone chips from the nerve. The pain was gone.

Roach reclaimed her spot on the national team, won a bronze medal at the 2007 Pan American Games in Brazil, then turned her attention to the 2008 Olympic trials in Atlanta, determined to make good on a deferred dream.

Roach, one of the oldest athletes in the sport, made all three of her lifts in the snatch -- the heaviest was at 178 pounds -- screaming in delight after the final one.

In the clean and jerk, she easily lifted 229 pounds, then locked up her spot by hoisting a little less than 240 pounds on her second attempt. With the bar still above her head, Roach screamed again, knowing she was on her way to Beijing.

"Having Drew and the challenges of autism has helped me put things in perspective," she said. "Something like that will either tear a family apart or it draws closer together. It made us so much stronger."

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