Rochelle Stevens, a two-time Olympian and relay gold medalist, has the masters bug. On Monday, the Memphis Commercial Appeal reported that she’s returning to track with a goal of making the 2008 Olympic team. Short of that, she wants to lower the longstanding W40 world record at 400 meters: 53.68 by Chile’s Sara Montecinos in 1994. The Olympic Trials qualifying standard should do it. In 2004, it was 52.50. She said: “There are a lot of young women still not running as fast as I used to on a bad day. I’m not going out there to whip up on everybody, but I’ll do my best. I feel confident I can make it.”

If this comeback story sounds familiar, it is. Almost a year ago, 1984 Olympian Sharrieffa Barksdale made a similar announcement about going for 2008. But Sharrieffa was 44 at the time. That’s a stretch. (And she hasn’t competed since her announcement. Not a good sign.)
Rochelle is younger, though, and has a lot going for her, besides her experience and talent. She’s the founder and CEO of a health spa in Memphis, and her mom (her coach) is helping in the comeback. Sounds like a solid support system to me.
Best of luck to Rochelle!
Here’s the story by Ron Higgins:
Maybe it was the new “Rocky” movie she just watched. Maybe it was the martial arts training she has undertaken for almost two years.
But at age 40, two-time Olympic medalist Rochelle Stevens of Memphis is lean, mean and dreaming of running again in the Olympics.
Stevens, who won gold in the 1996 Atlanta Games and silver in ’92 Barcelona Games as part of the United States’ 1,600-meter relay teams, announced on Monday that she’s coming out of retirement to make a run at the ’08 Beijing Games.
“There are a lot of young women still not running as fast as I used to on a bad day,” Stevens said. “I’m not going out there to whip up on everybody, but I’ll do my best. I feel confident I can make it.”
Stevens also wants to break the world masters 400 meters record for her age group. That record is currently 53.68 seconds, set by Sara Montecinos in 1994.
With her mother/trainer Rev. Beatrice Davis at her side, Stevens made the announcement at her East Memphis day spa, where she also announced the sale of her new aerobic exercise DVD. The video, called “Train With A Winner, Feel Like A Star” will help finance her training, which will begin in the spring.
Stevens retired in 2000 after torn knee cartilage kept her from competing in the Olympic trials for the 2000 Sydney Games. She didn’t even consider giving the 2004 Athens Games a try.
It wasn’t until November when Stevens filmed her video that she seriously considered a comeback. But as martial arts, mountain biking and wind sprints helped whip her back into shape — she’s at 125 pounds, her running weight during her Olympic heyday — she realized she had to scratch that competitive itch one more time.
“Once I began martial arts, it really sculpted my body, I got in shape and I thought I could do a little somethin’ somethin,'” Stevens said. “I didn’t do anything for five years. Other people looked at me and thought I never got out of shape, but I could feel it.”
In some ways, Stevens looks at her 2000 retirement as unfinished business. She was going to retire that year anyway, but never expected to retire because of injury. That made her exit even more painful.
“All I could think about was all the hard work I’d put into the training, like 250,000 crunches in one year, the hundreds of miles of roadwork, riding the mountain bike, running stadium steps,” Stevens said. “I trained six hours a day, six days a week.
“I may have overtrained (which caused the knee problems). But because I was a drug-free athlete, I had to put in twice the amount of work of the persons who cheat.
“I didn’t watch the Olympic trials that year, I didn’t watch the Olympic Games and I didn’t even watch all the Olympic stuff in 2004,” Stevens said. “I just didn’t have the motivation to look at others out there.”
Stevens said she’ll begin training in the spring, aiming to run in meets early next year. The Olympic qualifying standard for the 400 meters is 52.5 seconds. If Stevens meets that standard running in a United States Track and Field-sanctioned event, such as her own Rochelle Stevens Invitational held every May, she would advance to the Olympic trials.
The trials are June 27-July 6, 2008 at the University of Oregon in Eugene. The Beijing Games are a month later, running Aug. 8-24. The last few years, the American runner who has dominated the 400 is 21-year-old Sanya Richards, who had 12 of the top 15 times last year among American runners.
“I know and my mother knows it’s going to take a lot of hard work,” Stevens said. “We have never taken the easy way.”