SportsAsToldByAGirl had the exciting opportunity to chat with bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor, back from Pyeongchang where she along with her teammate Lauren Gibbs brought home the silver medal!
At the age of nine years old, Elana Meyers Taylor decided she was going to be an Olympian.
She was very athletic growing up, playing softball, basketball, soccer and track.
“You name it, I played it,” she said.
Taylor had her heart set on softball. She played softball collegiately and professionally, but her tryout for the Olympic team was “a disaster.” They were also taking softball out of the games, so she, in order to become an Olympian, knew she had to find another sport.
After watching it on TV and seeing the strong, powerful women who participated, her parents suggested bobsled. She thought her strengths from softball could cross over. She was invited to a tryout and has been doing it ever since.
Within the first week of her time in the sport she knew she wanted to become a driver someday. She spent her first three years as a brakeman, but the goal remained learning how to drive the sled. After the Vancouver Olympics in 2010, she achieved that goal.
“Part of the cool thing about our sport is you get to look fear in the face and decide to do it anyway,” she said. “I love it and it’s the greatest feeling in the world when I get to do it.”
Her hard work has paid off. She is coming off her third Olympics, earning a bronze medal in Vancouver and silver medals in both Sochi and Pyeongchang. She said this year’s games were “crazy” but she had a lot of fun and enjoyed the great competition.
“This Olympics had a lot of challenges but every Olympics does,” Taylor said. “That’s what makes winning a silver medal that much more special.”
Taylor actually earned that silver medal with a slight tear in her Achilles tendon, which she said was really painful.
“For me it was just a matter of realizing there would be some pain, but as long as I could deal with the pain there wasn’t much of a chance I would make things worse,” she said.
The day Taylor and her partner, Lauren Gibbs, won their silver medal was a big day for American women at the Olympics. Jessie Diggins and Kikkan Randall won a gold medal in team sprint cross-country skiing, Jamie Anderson won a silver medal in big air snowboarding and speed skaters Heather Bergsma and Brittany Bowe won a bronze medal in the team pursuit. And for the first time in 20 years, women took away more Olympic medals than men.
“It’s absolutely amazing,” she said. “It was a really cool day in Team USA history to have that many strong, powerful women win medals on that day, it was awesome…It was really cool to be a part of that and I hope it inspires young girls that they can achieve their dreams regardless of the odds that are stacked against them.”
Taylor wants to keep participating in the sport and has her eyes set on Beijing in 2022. She said people think she wants to keep going to win a gold medal, but she wants to keep going because she truly loves the sport.
“Two years ago our world champion was 37, and that’s how old I’ll be at the next games,” she said. “I love competing. I love competing for my country. I love driving a bobsled and I’d like to do it as long as I can.”
She said young girls should try the sport she loves so much. She wants them to open themselves up to new possibilities in sports and hopefully continue the legacy of women outperforming men at the Olympics like they did this year.
She also hopes to use her platform and her voice as an Olympic athlete to inspire girls to achieve their dreams.
“No matter what the world says about you, no matter what other people say about you you can achieve your dreams,” she said. “Even if you’re a girl who grows up in Georgia just dreaming to be in the Olympics one day you can find the path and make it happen. You have to believe in yourself and surround yourself with a great team of people and go after it with all your heart and soul.”
