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March 30, 2020 By: Woody Paige

Woody Paige: Six-time Olympic medalist Amy Van Dyken-Rouen glad 2020 Games postponed

The Summer Olympics in 2021 will be, strangely enough, the silver anniversary of the Golden Girl year for Coloradan Amy Van Dyken-Rouen.

Amy, who won six gold medals in two Olympics and has been inducted into five Halls of Fame, including three in Colorado, as one of America’s all-time supreme swimmers, is hopeful of being in Japan and wheeling, and possibly, walking around.

Effervescent and eternally optimistic, Van Dyken-Rouen, the victim of an ATV accident in 2014 that left her a paraplegic, still is competing and contending for medals — as a world-class adaptive athlete.

On Tuesday, she was so thankful that the Games had been postponed for a year because of the coronavirus global crisis. Amy told me in a telephone conversation from her home in Scottsdale, Ariz., that the IOC’s decision is, “awesome. I’m so happy it was done for the Olympic athletes’ well-being physically and emotionally. It was the right call.’’

Van Dyken-Rouen cited that the training routines of the Olympic aspirants “have been disrupted, and they can’t prepare properly, and we’d certainly not want to put them in harm’s way with the virus. If the IOC had proceeded with the schedule, there wouldn’t have been a level playing field, and probably there wouldn’t have been all the competitors, the fans, the support staffs, the Paralympians, the media. Next year it will be the Olympics as usual.’’

Nevertheless, “I do feel for the older athletes. For a lot of them, 2020 was their final chance. It just gets harder on their bodies every year. I know what that’s like.’’

After becoming the first U.S. woman swimmer to win four gold medals in a single Games in 1996 in Atlanta when she was 23, Van Dyken chose to return one more time for the 2000 Olympics in Australia. Then she badly injured her shoulder and barely could swim leading up to the Games. Yet, she qualified and ended up winning two additional gold medals in relays. She retired shortly afterward.

Amy would represent several charities, serve as a motivational speaker and a coach for young swimmers, co-host a national nightly radio sports talk show, and work as an NFL sideline reporter. And she married Tom Rouen, who had achieved his own illustrious sports career. Rouen was the Broncos punter over 10 seasons (1993-2002) and owns two Super Bowl rings.

Following Van Dyken-Rouen’s accident, in which she was paralyzed with a severed spine, Amy was airlifted to a hospital, and later transferred for two months to Craig Rehabilitation Hospital in Englewood. She was born and raised in Denver and graduated from Cherry Creek High School and Colorado State University.

As a youth with asthma, Amy was ordered by a doctor to take up swimming. “I was the worst one in the pool and last in a bunch of meets.’’ But she just missed the 1992 Olympics, finishing fourth in qualifying.

Amy set records and got gold four times in Atlanta in the 1996 Summer Games that experienced its own tragedy — a domestic terrorist bombing in Olympic Park that killed one and injured 111.

I was a block away when the explosion occurred, and Amy was just a bit farther away.

“I’ll never forget what happened. It was later the same night I won my fourth gold medal, and my Olympics was over. I didn’t celebrate, and I was worried about all the swimmers and other athletes. It was frantic. We didn’t know what was going on or if the rest of Olympics would be canceled. But, when it was determined the bombing was an isolated situation, the Games went on.’’

These Olympics also will go on — a year later.

Van Dyken-Rouen would like to be involved as a network TV swimming commentator. She works for the Pac-12 Network and was an analyst at the conference’s swimming championships at the beginning of March. “It was the final event before the Pac-12 canceled everything else,’’ she said.

When we talked, Amy had wound up her third workout of Tuesday. Because of gym closings, some equipment was, “moved to my neighbors’ backyard. If they didn’t think I was weird before, they now know I’m nuts. They sip wine and watch.’’

Amy was encouraged a couple of years ago to try CrossFit training to develop her upper-body and arm strength. She approached weightlifting as if she were back in Olympic form.

Challenged by her trainers, Amy entered the WheelWOD World Games in Canada last year. In Seat Division of 12 events over three days, Amy placed second. “It was my first silver medal ever, and swimming was my worst. I was determined to come back this year.’’

The Adaptive Open remains scheduled for June 12-14 in Minnesota, but likely also will canceled.

Amy Van Dyken-Rouen will have to wait another year to win another gold medal.

She is the golden woman.