Six-time Olympic swimming champion Amy Van Dyken-Rouen has picked up a new sport since being paralyzed from the waist down in a 2014 ATV accident.
Adaptive skiing.
“This, to me, is freedom,” the 1996 and 2000 Olympian said on TODAY. “A lot of people who are injured say that getting in the swimming pool is liberating and free for them. For me, that’s where I feel the most paralyzed.”
So Van Dyken-Rouen has been gliding through snow in Breckenridge, Colo., continuing to challenge limits imposed by others in her recovery.
Van Dyken-Rouen has also walked with an exo-skeleton and felt reflexes in her knees and ankles, according to TODAY.