My mom has never cared if I did sports or not. Obviously, she's proud of me, and she loves the fact that I'm an Olympian and she's got these trinkets to hang around with the medals and whatnot. But if I wanted to do whatever, if I wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer or whatever, she was going to support me regardless.
— Elana Meyers
It's important that the Olympics are motivating to young people and inspiring to all, and the only way to do that is to ensure clean performances, free of cheating.
Being a brakeman is very physical, and success is mostly determined by how fast you can push a sled for about 30 meters.
I grew up in Douglasville, Georgia. My father played football for the Atlanta Falcons. We lived a bunch of places when I was younger. I was born in California. We lived in Chicago for a little bit, and finally, we ended up in Georgia.
I'm a squat person: I love squats. I love back squats, things like that.
I love this sport, and I want people to have the opportunities that I have. I want the kid in the inner city to know that she can be a bobsledder one day, and I want the kid in the middle of Africa to know that she can be a bobsledder one day. So the more that we can go out there and grow the sport, the better.
I'll do whatever I need to do to bring more athletes to the sport.
Growing up, most girls have this image of how they want their wedding to be and things like that. I had none of that except for the cake I wanted, and that's what I got. The cake was the first thing we ordered.
After the situation I had with my concussion in 2015, how long and lasting the effects were, I'm just more careful about it.
Bobsleigh is best for athletes who are fast and strong, which were my strengths in softball.
I played all kinds of sports growing up: soccer, basketball, track. You name it, I've probably played it.
Find your passion, set a goal, go to work, evaluate, reassess, and repeat.
I've always been the type willing to try a lot of different things.
Bobsled boils down to three things - your equipment, start, and drive. To win the Olympics requires all three.
My dad was a Marine, my aunt is still in the Navy, and my grandfathers both served. So, it's a huge honor for me to represent my country in any way I can.
The more eyeballs there are on the sport, it will get more diverse.
In Sochi, I felt like I lost a gold.
I've encountered a lot of biases as a woman.
My favorite thing about South Korea is the people - they are so kind and helpful.
I played softball at George Washington University, and then I played professionally for the Mid-Michigan Ice. I had a couple of tryouts with the U.S. Olympic Team, but I don't know if I have a word to describe how bad one of the tryouts was. It was the worst tryout in the history of tryouts. It was that bad.
If one little girl who looks like me picks up a winter sport because she sees me, that's all anybody could ever ask for.
I went to college, George Washington University, and played softball there. I also played professionally but with the real goal of being an Olympian and making the Olympic team.
For most people, they only thing they know about bobsled is 'Cool Runnings.' Well, 'Cool Runnings' was, of course, four men in a bobsled, and four-man is considered the highlight of our sport. It's what everybody knows. It's what everybody watches. And it's the big dog of our sport.
Most people watch a game because they're excited about it; I'll sit there and watch lacrosse championships to try to find a female who could be a bobsledder.
I don't like cold weather.
Anything worth having is worth working for.
I was a shortstop in softball, and a lot of times I had collisions with base runners coming in, so I definitely have scars.
There's times when I'll be out in the middle of the track, standing in the curve, and I'll just laugh. 'What the heck am I doing right now? I'm sliding down the hill at crazy speeds and standing in freezing cold weather.'
I'm not sure I'll ever love softball as much as bobsled. It's like having children: you don't love one more than the other, you just love them differently, and that's how my love for softball is vs. my love of bobsled - two totally different sports with different personalities.
Being southern and doing bobsled was difficult from the standpoint that I had no idea how to handle the cold and how to dress in the cold, let alone warm up and compete in the cold - so it was a definite shock. I didn't even own a coat when I first started bobsledding!
All sports have a zone, but ours is at 95 mph. You can feel the speed; you can feel the wind. It's the most euphoric thing I've ever done.
I'm E Money because I'm money when it counts. Not sure exactly where or when it started, but I was called it in softball, too.
I got a letter from a mom, and she was telling me about how her daughter is a tomboy and the trouble she has in classes and being around boys. She herself had the same kinds of problems growing up and how inspired they were by me. That was such an incredible email to receive.
I love who I am. But being a woman competing in a male-dominated sport and always trying to push the envelope as a female athlete, you get a lot of comparisons to men and things like that.
I am powered by the defeat in Sochi, as I am by all my defeats.
I grew up playing softball, and at the age of nine, I decided I was going to be an Olympian. I didn't really know what that meant at the time. I thought it might be in a warm summer sport like softball, but I played a variety of sports growing up - basketball, soccer and track. I really didn't care. I just wanted to be an Olympian.
I've been on every type of nutrition plan you can think of.
Anytime you hit a curve, or you hit on the side of the wall, you hit against the side of the sled. We're taking four to five, sometimes six or seven Gs on our body every time we go down the track. And then the crashing.
I don't put limits on anybody.
I converted from softball. We've got volleyball, we've got track and field. Athletes come from anywhere and then convert into bobsled.
Oh my gosh, cheat meals I could go on and on about.
Making the transition from softball to bobsleigh was difficult, but my family and friends believed in me when no one else would.
Bobsled is a universal sport, and most people don't know that. Anybody can slide down a hill.
After giving up softball, I didn't know what I was going to do. I thought I would try bobsled, but I wasn't really sure what would happen. I thought my athletic career was over.
I've been in plenty of crashes! Some are not too bad - resulting in ice burn. Others are pretty rough, and sometimes - rarely, but sometimes - people do get seriously injured. It's a risk we all know of and accept. If you bobsled, you're going to crash - guaranteed.
I made driving mistakes in Sochi that cost me gold, and I'll torture myself for the rest of my life about that!
When bobsled is going right - and it sometimes goes wrong - it's the closest thing I could imagine to being a superhero.
I want to represent my color and ethnicity. To be proud of our heritages is really cool.
Bobsledding is like sprinting with NASCAR. You get to push these 400-pound sleds as fast as you can down a hill and hop in. How could you not enjoy that?
