When Elana Meyers Taylors is pushing a bobsled, she’s a mathematician calculating speed, distance and time in a matter of seconds.
At the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, a small mistake meant missing gold by one tenth of a second. As one of the best bobsled pilots in the world, Taylor said she won’t make that mistake again in PyeongChang.
“I feel very prepared,” Taylor said. “We’ve got the experience, we’ve got the talent. Now it’s time to go for the gold.”
Taylor has gone from a star high school softball player in Georgia who didn’t own a winter coat to an elite professional bobsledder and the first woman to pilot a four-man team. She’s accustomed to training on a track of concrete and metal rails long before the weather provides the backdrop for a sport dependent on ice.
But she doesn’t do it alone. Always with her on the track is training partner and husband, Nick Taylor, who is on the men’s bobsled team.
“Having the support of my husband and having him by my side means the world to me,” Taylor said. “I feel like our relationship has really grown through all our experiences in the sport of bobsled.”
Now entering her third Olympics, Taylor is hoping that PyeongChang will be her moment for gold in a sport she’s loved for so long.
“I slide down a hill for a living,” Taylor said. “I mean, who wouldn’t want to do that?”
