“I was getting disqualified just jumping off the blocks. I really didn’t know what I was doing.”
Melissa Stockwell tests her metal
By Kristy Holland
Less than a year removed from the streets of Baghdad and the April 2004 roadside explosion that took her left leg, Melissa Stockwell began chasing her Olympic dreams. “I had never even heard of the Paralympics before my injury,” says the upbeat athlete from her home near Chicago, “but when I found out about it, I knew immediately it was something I wanted to do.”
Last year the 29-year-old amputee broke the U.S. record for the 400-meter Freestyle event at the Olympic trials in Minnesota, where she began her competitive career in 2005; and she swam to fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-place finishes in the 400-meter Freestyle, the 100-meter Freestyle, and the 100-meter Butterfly, respectively, at the Paralympic Games in Beijing. But with just four years in the pool, Melissa hopes the best is yet to come. “My times had to increase 500 percent for me to make the team last year,” she laughs, “and at first I was getting disqualified just jumping off the blocks. I really didn’t know what I was doing.”
It has been a steep learning curve, but Melissa has proven she can handle steep, even on one leg. She’s hit the slopes on a single ski with the Wounded Warrior Project, where she also serves on the Board of Directors, and last November she made the cut to compete with 45 elite athletes in the longest handcycle race in the world. Though she rattles off a crosscountry list of upcoming events—the CAN-AM Disability Championships in Oregon, a California triathlon, a veterans’ ski trip to Vail—the 267- mile handcycle race is arguably the toughest of the lot. In Sadler’s Alaska Challenge, she’ll be wheel-to-wheel against two fellow Paralympians in the women’s category. “My arms and shoulders were shot after just 26.2 miles on a handbike last year,” recalls Melissa. “I’m going to have to start training a lot to make it 55 miles up a mountain.” The eight-stage race climbs 16,000 feet and culminates with an 18-mile, 3,500-foot climb after six grueling race days.
Melissa admits that she’s always had a competitive streak and that her injury has inspired her move toward elite athlete status and her studies pursuing a degree in prosthetics, which is on hold while she tours the country and begins training in earnest for London 2012. “Swimming made me feel whole again,” she says, “and after my injury I was drawn to the Paralympics, knowing that I’d be representing the flag. It’s the same reason I joined the army: to wear the uniform and defend it. But representing the USA in a different way, I’ve come full circle.”
