I shot this video earlier this afternoon (February 29,2008) (Lori):
Click the photo below to download the video in wmv format
REPOSTING THE ABOVE LIVE FEMALEMUSCLE.COM VIDEO COVERAGE OF MELANIE ROACH in light of this morning’s sports cover story on Melanie: complete nytimes.com story HERE
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“May 6, 2008
Finding Inner Strength
By GREG BISHOP
SUMNER, Wash. — Melanie Roach is a former gymnast who owns a gymnastics facility. Her husband is a state legislator. At 33, she is the mother of three young children, including 5-year-old Drew, who is autistic. And she can lift 238 pounds over her head.
All of which makes her one of America’s most unlikely Olympic hopefuls.
For a start, Roach, who is 5 feet 1 inch and 117 pounds, looks nothing like a weight lifter. She was a gymnast until 10 years ago, when she left behind a middling career, took up weight lifting and in 1998 set an unofficial world record by lifting twice her body weight, a first for an American woman.
But she hyperextended her right elbow four months before the world championships in 1999 and had a herniated disk in her back eight weeks before the Olympic trials in 2000. She attempted to compete despite the injury, only to end up crying in the stands.
The back injury bothered her for seven years — through three pregnancies and three times as many comeback attempts.
“She rose to greatness so quickly, and then all of a sudden it was over,” said Roach’s training partner Alexis Reed. “You almost asked yourself, a year or two later, ‘Did that really happen?’ ”
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