21-03-2025
2026 Winter Olympic Hopeful: Bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor
Elana Meyers Taylor will be 42 and attempting to make her fifth Winter Olympics Games in Milan Cortina in 2026. She is America's most decorated athlete in the bobsled event, but she has never won gold. Can she do it this time?
Elana Meyers Taylor (born Elana Alessandra Meyers) was born October 10, 1984 in Oceanside, California. Her father, Eddie Meyers, a Naval Academy graduate, had been stationed there at Camp Pendleton Marine Base. Eddie was a good athlete having played football at Navy, and as a running back he would set school rushing records. During his five years in Pendleton Meyers would work to stay in football shape and take leave to report to the Atlanta Falcons training camp, but things would never pan out.
The family would move to Atlanta, Georgia when Elana'Had I not failed on that day, it's a virtual certainty that this girl who was born in California, raised and still lives in Atlanta, would have never found the inside of a bobsled,' she said, adding that graduates may find failing at a goal to be 'the best thing that ever happens to you.' was in second grade. She would play sports in school eventually settling on softball. She was not very good when she started but she would live and breathe the sport from nine years of age through her teens becoming a star and earning a full scholarship to George Washington University in 2002. Elana would play at GWU for five years. She would also be invited onto the US National Team in 2003–a dream come true.
It was while Meyers Taylor was attending GWU that she experienced a profound spiritual conversion. During her sophomore year she found herself searching.
'My sophomore year, our softball team was doing really badly and our season ended up getting canceled,' says Meyers. 'So, that being the center of my life, I got really depressed. I didn't know what to do and I didn't know what my purpose was. I just started researching religions. Something inside of me told me I needed more than this.'
She would make a decision over Christmas break to become a christian. When Meyers Taylor returned to the GWU campus she joined an Athletes in Action group and began, along with other student athletes, to grow in her faith as a Christ-follower.
In 2008 Elana had finished an outstanding college softball career at GWU as the all-time leader in many offensive categories. Her No. 24 jersey would eventually be retired in 2014. Her personal and professional accolades would include: a masters degree in sports management, an honorary doctorate degree in 2018, the Presidents medal in 2022 and one of GWU's 'Monumental Alumni' as a part of the school's bicentennial celebration in 2021.
But in 2008 her ultimate lifetime dream was to make the U.S. Olympic Team. And she failed 'miserably' in her own words. As commencement speaker at GWU in 2022, Elana would recount her crushing disappointment over not making the U.S. Olympic softball team describing it as 'the worst tryout in the history of tryouts.'
But instead of giving up on her Olympic dreams, she would pivot. In 2006 while Elana was home from college watching the winter Olympics in Torino, Italy, her mother had suggested she try the bobsled. Elana, who is built like father with a short explosive build, was a natural fit to be a successful pusher; The pusher tries to maximize the speed of the bobsled at the start of the race. She did not heed her mother's advice in 2006.
Now after her failed tryout in 2008 her mother's words in 2006 would return to her. If she wanted to pursue this Olympic dream she needed a new sport. As she would tell an audience of GWU graduates and their families at her 2021 commencement speech:
'Had I not failed on that day, it's a virtual certainty that this girl who was born in California, raised and still lives in Atlanta, would have never found the inside of a bobsled,' she said, adding that graduates may find failing at a goal to be 'the best thing that ever happens to you.'
Two-person sleds are approximately ten feet long. Two-woman sleds can have a maximum total weight of 730 pounds. A women's monobob (This event was just added in the 2022 Olympics) will have a maximum weight of 550 pds and length of approximately nine feet.
Modern tracks are made of concrete and coated with ice. They are required to have at least one straight section and one labyrinth (three turns in quick succession without a straight section). Ideally, a modern track should be 3,900–4,300 feet ong and have at least fifteen curves. Speeds may exceed 75 mph and some curves can subject the crews to as much as 5 'g's' (that is five times one's weight in gravitational force) The two-woman event was first contested at the 2002 Winter Olympics.
Elana would throw herself into her new sport with punishing workouts to build up her speed and power as a pusher (the pusher also acts as brakewoman of the sled). Her father Eddie would sit in his 3500 pound Kia Sportage SUV in the driveway in neutral and Elana would push the SUV up their driveway.
Her hard work would pay off. On February 24, 2010, Meyers Taylor and driver Erin Pac would win the bronze medal at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games. Their first run was 53.28 seconds. Their second run was 53.05. Their third run was 53.29, and their fourth run was 53.78 for a total of 3:33.40, a combined difference of just 1.12 seconds behind the gold medal team of Kaillie Humphries and Heather Moyse of Canada.
Elana had done it–she had made the Olympic team and won a medal But Meyers Taylor was not done.
On February 19, 2014, Meyers Taylor, now acting as driver, and Lauryn Williams would win the silver medal at the 2014 Winter Olympic Games. Their first run was 57.26 seconds (a track record). Their second run was 57.63. Their third run was 57.69, and their fourth run was 58.13 for a total of 3:50.71 seconds, a difference, this time just one tenth of a second from first place!
And again she would be edged out by Kaillie Humphries and Heather Moyse of Canada. And again, she was not done yet.
In Pyeonchang Meyers Taylor would finally beat her nemesis, Humphries and Moyse of Canada. But she and pusher Lauren Gibbs would again win silver and finish second, this time just seven tenths of a second behind the german bobsled team of Mariama Jamanka and Lisa Marie Buckwitz.
At Beijing Meyers Taylor would be chosen to carry the U.S. flag at the opening ceremony but would test positive for Covid 19 and be forced to watch the events on television.
Isolated from her team (and her infant son Nico), Meyers Taylor was determined to control her situation. She turned her hotel room into a makeshift gym and threw herself into rigorous physical training, eventually winning a silver in the inaugural monobob race and bronze medal in the two-man bobsled with pusher Sylvia Hoffman.
Her triumphs in Beijing would make Meyers Taylor the most decorated black athlete in the history of the WInter Olympics. But being a trailblazer was tough at times as she experienced racism firsthand. In a 2020 interview Elana was quoted as saying 'No amount of Olympic medals-or at least the ones I've won thus far-can save you from experiencing racism.'
She has witnessed it on several levels: Sled technology is huge. Races are won and lost on equipment so teams are always searching for the top sleds which can cost upwards of $100,000.
'As a black pilot, I'm able to buy most sleds in the world except one-and that one manufacturer currently makes one of the fastest sleds on tour. But I wouldn't buy it even if I could. This one manufacturer refuses to sell to black pilots and has been quoted saying 'if I wanted to see a monkey drive a sled, I'd go to the zoo.' '
Elana also saw it on the coaching level. A coach from another country was recorded saying several racist statements specifically referencing Meyers Taylor.
The basic premise was that there were no good black drivers and that black athletes needed to stay in the back of the sled as they simply lacked the mental capacity to drive. And this was after she had won an Olympic medal and two world championships as a pilot, and even earned a spot on the US Men's team as a 4-man pilot.
'Regardless of my medal tally, the color of my skin apparently was the determinant of whether or not I was a skilled bobsled pilot.'
Can Meyers Taylor make her fifth Olympic Games? And can she finally win gold? She certainly deserves it based upon her sheer perseverance. But Elana, via her faith, is keeping it all in perspective.
'God put me here for a specific reason and I don't think it's just to win medals. At the end of the day, I'm in this sport to glorify God, so if that means I come in last place or I win the gold medal, that's what I'm going to do.'
