Rockies to Rio: Coloradans Vying for a Spot at the 2016 Olympic Games

Here is the perception of the Olympic athlete from Colorado: strapped to skis or a snowboard, a bobsled or a luge, bundled in thick wind resistant clothing with tinted goggles to guard against biting winds and dense snow. Heavily bearded men, pink-faced ladies.

Those are the winter Olympians, and yes, Colorado is chock full of them, but the Centennial State shows out in above-average numbers every fourth summer as well. The Paralympics also see high numbers of Colorado athletes, with 13 out of the 227 overall in 2012 coming from Colorado, the second highest overall.

Four years ago, the United States sent 530 athletes – 261 men and 269 women – to compete in London. Of those men and women on Team USA, 12 came from Colorado, the thirteenth highest output in the country. California was first with 127 representatives, New York and Pennsylvania in second with 35 apiece, Texas with 33 and Florida with 31. Colorado’s numbers might reflect the fact that there is a training facility in Colorado Springs, causing more athletes to move into the area, but many are natives as well.

Colorado’s top three events over the last three summer Olympics – Athens, Beijing, London – were Track and Field (14 total participants), Cycling (11) and Wrestling (7), according to the United States Olympic Committee. As a whole, Team USA sends the highest number of athletes to compete in a Track and Field event, so it doesn’t come as a surprise that Colorado, a state with two accomplished collegiate programs (Colorado State University and University of Colorado at Boulder), competes most in those events. Eight graduates from those schools have competed in a Track & Field event in one of the past three summer Olympic games.

Team USA has yet to solidify its roster for the Rio de Janeiro games (most trials will begin in the next few months), but Colorado has a number of returning athletes hungry for another shot at glory, and some new aspirants as well. We talked to four potential participants – two Paralympians and two Olympians – that call Colorado home.

Matt Updike – Denver

Nine months after nearly severing his spine in a car accident, Matt Updike was traveling over 400 miles through the Rocky Mountains, from Carbondale to Fort Collins, on a handcycle. For nine to twelve hours per day, Updike wound through peaks reaching 13,000 feet, all while laying four inches parallel to the ground, legs firmly strapped, arm strength and will pushing him forward.

That was in 1998. What he didn’t realize then, during the annual Ride the Rockies bike tour, was that in a few short years (2002) he’d be joining the USA Para Cycling Team in what was to be the start of a successful international career in the sport.

The 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil will mark the 19^th anniversary of the car crash that left Updike paralyzed from the chest down, forever changing the way he’d use his body, but reinforcing his will to live an active life.

Updike, a Syracuse, New York native, has always been fond of the mountainous west coast, where he’d often traveled with friends for “reckless” ski trips. This is part of the reason why he rehabbed at Craig Hospital, a rehabilitation clinic in Englewood. He spent two months getting accustomed to his new reality: wheelchair bound and without lower body movement.

“I’d never met anybody in a wheelchair before,” Updike said from his Denver home. “I had no idea what life would be like.”

Updike, who said he never dreamed of athletic competition on a global stage, would go on to win a gold medal as a part of the relay team in London 2012, a spot on the Beijing team in 2008, and a smattering of medals in national and world championships, including a gold medal at the World Championships in 2012 and a bronze in 2002.

His next big test will be July 2-3 in Charlotte, North Carolina, when the 27 member USA Para Cycling team will be pared down to the group that will compete in Rio. His first Paralympic appearance, in the 2008 Beijing games, was an emotional moment for a man who’d only been competing in the sport for eight years.

“A lot of my friends and family were there. It’s hard not to shed a tear,” he said.

Updike has lived in Denver since he left Craig Hospital around Christmas in 1997.

“Now my life is so entrenched here. I work out of my home office, and the great part about my job is I can take off for a few weeks and do some races,” he said.

When he’s not working his day job as a mortgage banker or gearing up for a race, he likes to explore the city’s dining scene and act as a peer counselor at Craig, where he encourages patients who are in a position he was in not too long ago, to keep pushing and remain active.

“To be able to do things normally is huge mentally, as far as being able to survive,” he said.

The 44 year-old is now gearing up for Rio, where he says the “pancake flat” course should play to his advantage, since he’s taller and heavier then most other riders, making steep climbs more difficult.

No matter how often he cruises the Denver to Golden trail or hits the gym for interval training, Updike knows that on game day, stakes are higher. After all he’s been through, he knows how to handle the pressure.

“You can always dig a little deeper in a race,” he said, maintaining a loose and carefree attitude through all he’s been through. “I’m the guy who likes to fly in, get on my bike and race.”

Adeline Gray – Denver 

At the 2012 London Olympic games, Adeline Gray sat on the sidelines as an alternate while her fellow Team USA wrestling members competed for medals. Those games only held heats for four weight classes, none of which naturally suited Gray. Due to the pressure put on the International Olympic Committee to commit to women’s wrestling, more weight classes were added for the 2016 Rio games.

Gray, a three-time world champion (2012, 2014, 2015) and favorite heading into Rio, is a resident athlete at the U.S. Olympic Complex in Colorado Springs. Gray moved to the training center after graduating from Bear Creek High School in Lakewood, and has lived and trained there ever since.

A typical day as a resident athlete includes a two-hour training session in the morning, rehab or meditation after lunch, and another two-hour session in the evening.

“The focus is all on wrestling,” Gray said.

Gray has had an exceptional run of world championships and other national and international victories. She currently owns the world number one ranking in the 75kg weight class. Her most memorable accomplishment thus far was winning the world championship last September in Las Vegas, Nevada.

“My family was there, and it was the first one on home turf. To go in there ranked number one and come out on top was a pretty awesome experience,” she said.

For all of the hard work she dedicates to the sport, for all of the accolades and success, Gray remains a girl from Denver who wears her hometown on her sleeve.

“The fact I can live in a great place and represent us well has been a really big honor,” she said.

She spends one day each week in Littleton with her family, and takes her days off to seek out new restaurants in Denver with her three sisters. She also enjoys Denver’s breweries and attending concerts at the Red Rock Amphitheatre.

Gray’s father, her coach until high school, is a Denver police officer, and when he works off-duty at Rockies, Avalanche or Broncos games, she’s delighted to tag along.

But at the moment her focus remains squarely on Rio, where she’ll compete in her first Olympic games in a young, eight-year career. Team trials are held April 10 in Iowa City, Iowa, and she must clear that first before she can set her sights on the gold.

“I’m ready to get the job done and officially be on the team,” she said.

A favorite heading into Rio should she qualify in April, Gray scoffs at the individual pressure that is coming her way, instead focusing on an issue that’s greater than one wrestler.

“Winning gold would solidify the importance of women’s wrestling in the US. To be able to get that first one for Team USA would really be an honor. It would be awesome to break ground,” she said.

Yellow Scene readers can keep up Gray on her website, Adelinegray.com, on

Twitter @adelinegray, or on Instagram at adelinegray12.

Janay DeLoach – Fort Collins

The 2013-2014 track and field seasons almost ended Janay DeLoach’s career in long jump and hurdles. First, she broke her left ankle, her natural side, at the U.S. championships in 2013. After a few gritty comeback attempts – she finished 11^th at the 2013 world championships jumping off her right foot – DeLoach had two surgeries in 2014. And then came the nail in the coffin: a half tear of her right quad in April 2015.

“I thought I was done,” she said.

Her career was far from over, but she had to make one minor change before she could compete again: “I had to R.I.P. the left foot.”

She was back at “ground zero”, but never counted herself out. “It was a self determination. I wanted and still want to be the best,” she said.

DeLoach has been leaping off her right foot ever since, still finding ways to succeed at the highest levels of competition. In March she’ll be competing in the long jump and 50-meter hurdles at the USA Indoor Track & Field Championships in Portland, Oregon, and in June she’ll attempt to qualify for Rio, in both the long jump and 100-meter hurdle events.

At the 2012 London games, DeLoach took home a bronze medal for the long jump. That hardly satisfied the 30 year-old.

“I’m proud and blessed that I got a medal,” she said. “I’m looking for gold in Rio.”

The self-described “military brat” was born in Florida and went to high school in Alaska. When it was time to pick a college – some offered her basketball scholarships, others track and field – DeLoach was looking for a team atmosphere. She found it at Colorado State University, where she broke a number of school records in long jump and hurdles. During her senior season, she was chosen by Team USA to compete at the Pan Am games in Rio, where she might be heading back this August “for a much bigger purpose.”

Since graduating CSU in 2007, DeLoach has lived in Fort Collins, which attracted her for its “300 days of sun, even when it’s cold and snowy out,” as well as for its wealth of outdoor activities and safety.

“Things were going really well, it didn’t make sense to leave,” she said.

The community gathered in 2012 to send her off to London, even pulling together funds to help send her family overseas.

“They really gathered behind me,” she said.

Her secret to success? Oatmeal. Before every race, DeLoach goes “above and beyond” to find oatmeal. “If I don’t, I panic,” she said, adding that her favorite toppings are butter, brown sugar and crushed almonds.

While she trains for the indoor championships and Olympic outdoor trials, DeLoach still finds time for other pursuits. She spoke with YS from a college meet in New Mexico, acting as a volunteer assistant coach with her alma mater, CSU, a school her brother now competes for. She also works as an occupational therapist.

And as for what comes next for the indefatigable DeLoach?

“Wherever the wind takes me,” she said.

Jason Regier – Denver

When Jason Regier first found himself in a wheelchair, he could barely scoot a few feet. He was almost totally immobile, paralyzed from the neck down, his biceps the only muscles with some function. That was 19 years ago, when he thought his “athletic career was over”. Not quite yet. Regier is a wheelchair rugby, or quad rugby, champion. Two Paralympic medals and an armful of national and world medals later, Regier can hardly believe it himself.

“I’m blown away,” he said. “Looking back after 19 years at how much I’ve been able to do. You go from barely being able to push a wheelchair, to days where you can push it 8-9 miles,” he said.

As an undergraduate student at Oregon State University, Jason Regier had aspirations of playing professional soccer in Europe. He was recruited on a soccer scholarship to the school in 1993. In the summer of ’96, Regier was driving from his Denver home back to Oregon to finish out his senior year, when his Jeep tumbled on the highway outside Salt Lake City at 75mph.

He escaped with his life, but his physical world was to be completely restructured. He rehabbed at Craig Hospital in Denver for three and a half months, where he was first introduced to the sport of quad rugby.

“I saw a rugby tournament at rehab, and I thought I’d give it a try. I was amazed by the athleticism of guys and how they’d relearnt to use the function they had,” he said from his home in Centennial.

Regier is a Denver native, and has lived in the area since leaving Craig. He loves being near the mountains. He embraces the active, outdoor lifestyle. He grew up around Cherry Creek Trail and still navigates it today (on a handcycle). And he’s a big fan of the region’s brewery scene. But that’ll have to wait. For now, he’s focused on Rio.

“With all this training I can’t get into the brew pubs anymore,” he said.

The last two teams to compete in Rio will be determined at a qualifying event in France in April. Regier is in the heat of a Colorado Club Rugby season, where he captains the Denver Harlequins.

This would be Regier’s third Olympic appearance. At the Beijing games in 2008, Regier and his compatriots debuted against the home team, China, in front of 8,000 people. They won that contest, and would go on to stand in the center position at the podium.

“To go (to Beijing) as a first experience and win a gold medal was one of the best achievements I’ve ever had,” he said, citing the grandiosity of the Beijing games and the city’s culture as highlights.

Regier is a passionate spokesperson for the Paralympic games, and he wishes the U.S. would do a better job covering it. While London did “an amazing job”, covering 400 hours of the games on television, Regier urges the U.S. to step up its coverage.

“We’re doing maybe a tenth of what we could do,” he said. Jason Regier knows a thing or two about going above and beyond the limits.