Earlier this month, Cowden competed in the Tour of Montreal and in a World Cup race there. The girl, who had gained enough weight to be released from the hospital to continue treatment as an outpatient, traveled to Montreal with her father to meet Cowden. Cowden spent two days with the teenager, who stood with her father in the cold rain atop a mountain to watch her idol race.

"When I saw her face for the first time, I could see in her eyes that she is a fighter. She will beat this disease," said Cowden, who herself had to beat anorexia and bulimia. "Ever since she and I connected a few months ago, whenever I'm suffering in a bike race or while training, I think of her. It makes me push harder because I know firsthand how incredibly hard the battle is that she is now fighting. As a cycling fan, she looks up to me, but she doesn't know how much I look up to her. Being able to be there for her, to talk to her and her family, and to offer encouragement and hope is an incredible blessing. It makes the tremendous pain that I experienced and that I put my family through worth it."

Cowden, a 31-year-old Los Angeles resident, who races for the U.S. National Team, Team T-Mobile, will compete Thursday (June 17) in the individual time trial and Saturday (June 19) in the road race, hoping for a berth on the 2004 U.S. Olympic Team. It would be an incredible thrill for Cowden if she makes it. However, serving as a role model in the fight against eating disorders has become an even greater mission that Cowden hopes to spend the rest of her life trying to fulfill.

More from Cowden's site:

Born and raised in a conservative middle class family in Louisville, Kentucky, Cowden was close to her parents and sister. Her parents made sacrifices so she could ride saddle-bred horses competitively, which she did nationally and internationally from the age of five through seventeen. But Cowden was also a rebellious thrill-seeker who liked to test the limits of what she could get away with. She started smoking cigarettes as a twelve-year-old and often got into trouble growing up. Desiring to expand her horizons, Cowden headed north to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to attend Villanova University, where she majored in communications and minored in philosophy. She wanted to be a television journalist.
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