{"id":3410,"date":"2014-02-14T19:00:31","date_gmt":"2014-02-15T00:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/?p=3410"},"modified":"2014-09-23T13:47:03","modified_gmt":"2014-09-23T17:47:03","slug":"a-conversation-with-two-time-olympic-bobsleigh-athlete-elana-meyers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2014\/02\/a-conversation-with-two-time-olympic-bobsleigh-athlete-elana-meyers.html","title":{"rendered":"A conversation with two-time Olympic bobsleigh athlete Elana Meyers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"2014<\/a>Elana Meyers was born into an Episcopalian family that later became Lutheran. More recently, she was baptized in a Baptist church. She\u2019s also been known to attend non-denominational services. So Meyers really isn\u2019t sure how to label her Christian faith.<\/p>\n

But the two-time Olympian and 2010 bronze medalist does<\/i> know that she is first and foremost a follower of Christ. For Meyers, that means doing things a little differently within her highly competitive sport.<\/p>\n

In this Inspiring Athletes interview, Meyers talks about how her original path to the Olympics didn\u2019t quite work out, what it means to serve others within her sport, and how fellow believers on the team bring added strength and support to her efforts on the ice:<\/p>\n

Chad Bonham: Tell me about your athletic history and how that led you to bobsledding.<\/p>\n

Elana Meyers: 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 grew up playing softball and at the age of nine I decided I was going to be an Olympian. I didn\u2019t 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\u2014basketball, soccer and track. I really didn\u2019t care. I just wanted to be an Olympian.<\/p>\n

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 US Olympic Team but I don\u2019t 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. So I totally bombed it and thought my chances of being an Olympian were over. However, my parents had seen bobsledding on TV in 2002 while I was still in the college and they told me I should try it. At the time, I still thought I was going to be an Olympic softball player. But later, when I retired from softball in 2007, I decided to give bobsled a try. I emailed the coach and got invited to Lake Placid for a tryout and I never left.<\/p>\n

Bonham: In 2010 you were the brakeman but this time around you\u2019re the driver (with teammate Lauryn Williams). What are the major differences between those two positions?<\/p>\n

Meyers: I like to compare the two to a quarterback and a lineman. Being a brakeman is very physical and success is mostly determined by how fast you can push a sled for about 30 meters. Your position is won or lost by the hundredths of seconds you are faster than another individual. It\u2019s like the lineman who is there mostly for their athleticism and physicality. The driver, like the quarterback, possesses a unique skill that takes a lot longer to learn.<\/p>\n

Bonham: Bobsledding seems to have become a diverse sport here in the United States.<\/p>\n

\"2014<\/a>Meyers: Yeah, no one really grows up competing in the bobsled. You have to be 16 years old before you can even drive one. And there are really only two places in the country where you can bobsled\u2014Park City, Utah, and Lake Placid, New York. There\u2019s not really much of an opportunity for a girl from Georgia like me or a girl like Aja (Evans) from Chicago to grow up bobsledding. I think it\u2019s great that we have such a diverse group.<\/p>\n

Bonham: Tell me about your faith background.<\/p>\n

Meyers: I was baptized Episcopalian when I was maybe two years old and we went to an Episcopalian church. When we moved to Georgia, we started going to a Lutheran church and I fell in love with the church there\u2014Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Douglasville, Georgia. I really have a home there. I have been to non-denominational churches like National Community Church in Washington D.C., but I\u2019ve also gone to Lake Placid Baptist and a slew of other churches. I got baptized with my fianc\u00e9 (Nic Taylor) this last year at Saranac Lake Baptist Church (in New York), so maybe that makes us Baptist. But for me, it\u2019s really been about my relationship with Christ and not so much about a denomination or a label.<\/p>\n

Bonham: Would it just be safe to say that you\u2019re a follower of Christ?<\/p>\n

Meyers: That\u2019s sounds great (laughs).<\/p>\n

Bonham: How does that play into your athletic career and your personal relationships?<\/p>\n

Meyers: The Lord calls us to love everybody. Every day it\u2019s a challenge. Within this sport, I\u2019m called to love everybody. That means that every single German or Canadian that I want to beat, I still have to love. That means competing the way God wants me to compete. That means doing things that might not necessarily be seen as giving me a competitive advantage but instead doing what God would want me to do. As Christians, we\u2019re asked to give. In my sport, if someone needs equipment or help with something, regardless of who they are as a competitor, I\u2019m called to help them for a higher purpose. So it definitely affects everything I do. It\u2019s not easy. It\u2019s very hard to love everyone. But I know that God is working through me within this sport. I know He\u2019s put me here for a purpose and it\u2019s not just to win medals. Winning is great and hopefully it gives me a platform to spread His love and spread His Word, but at the end of the day, I\u2019m called to do what He wants me to do.<\/p>\n

Bonham: What do you believe should be the correlation between the Christian athlete and excellence?<\/p>\n

\"2014<\/a>Meyers: I\u2019m a representative of something that\u2019s greater than myself. When you see me out there on the track, I\u2019m not just representing myself or my country, I\u2019m representing Christ and what He\u2019s done through me. I have a responsibility to show His love and show others what He\u2019s done for me. It\u2019s also freed me up. We\u2019re talking about the Olympics. We\u2019re talking about trying to win the gold medal. All of these things can be overwhelming. But regardless of whether I win a gold medal or never compete again, I just have to trust that God has a plan for my life and I\u2019m called to be His representative through the sport and outside of the sport.<\/p>\n

Bonham: How helpful is it to have others on the bobsled team that share your faith in Christ?<\/p>\n

Meyers: It\u2019s very helpful. In Lake Placid we have Bible studies and it\u2019s awesome to be able to share your struggles as an athlete and as a Christian with others Christian athletes. That\u2019s one of the coolest things about sports ministry. We can share these common experiences with other Christians. Having Lolo as a teammate, for example, has been great. I went through a tough week during the season and she sent me some scriptures and it really helped remind why I was here. I\u2019ve got some other great teammates like Dallas Robinson and Johnny Quinn on the men\u2019s side who have been tremendous at showing Christ\u2019s love. It\u2019s not just the US teams, but there are also many believers from the international community including several from the Canadian team. We hope to grow Christianity throughout our sport.<\/p>\n

Bonham: What does it mean to be called an Olympian?<\/p>\n

Meyers: It\u2019s one of the greatest honors I could ever imagine\u2014to be able to represent my country and to be able to wear \u201cUSA\u201d on my back. It\u2019s an incredible honor. It\u2019s an accomplishment of the past four year but of a life of dreaming and working hard and doing everything I can in pursuit of this goal. It\u2019s a huge testament to those around me\u2014my friends, my family and everyone who supported me. Without their help, I couldn\u2019t have made it here. It\u2019s been an amazing journey. But we are here for a higher purpose There\u2019s a reason that God has for each of us in the sport. It\u2019s all about serving His purpose.<\/p>\n

Follow Elana Meyers and the US Bobsleigh Team by visiting the official NBC coverage site HERE<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elana Meyers was born into an Episcopalian family that later became Lutheran. More recently, she was baptized in a Baptist church. She\u2019s also been known to attend non-denominational services. So Meyers really isn\u2019t sure how to label her Christian faith. But the two-time Olympian and 2010 bronze medalist does know that she is first and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":418,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[836,3,578,382,6,5],"tags":[1362,1361,1368,1358,1365,1363,1366,1191,1059,1364,1367,1360,1359,299],"class_list":["post-3410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bobsledding","category-christian-athletes","category-olympic-athletes","category-qa","category-sports","category-sports-features","tag-aja-evans","tag-bronze-medalist","tag-dallas-robinson","tag-elana-meyers","tag-george-washington-university","tag-johnny-quinn","tag-lake-placid","tag-lauryn-williams","tag-lolo-jones","tag-nic-taylor","tag-park-city-utah","tag-sochi-2014","tag-team-usa","tag-winter-olympics"],"yoast_head":"\nA conversation with two-time Olympic bobsleigh athlete Elana Meyers - Inspiring Athletes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2014\/02\/a-conversation-with-two-time-olympic-bobsleigh-athlete-elana-meyers.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A conversation with two-time Olympic bobsleigh athlete Elana Meyers - Inspiring Athletes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Elana Meyers was born into an Episcopalian family that later became Lutheran. 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Chad is currently working on five new books including Sooner Legacy, Husker Legacy and Lessons From Sooner Football (Cross Training) as well as The Faith of Stock Car Racing (Judson Press). When he's not writing, Chad lends his efforts to various independent television and film projects. He was the coordinating producer for Choosing Life (2010) and Life Happens (2011). Chad is currently serving as producer on a forthcoming documentary about Super Bowl champion Brian Kinchen. Chad and his wife Amy live in Broken Arrow, Okla., with sons Lance (September 2003), Cole (February 2008) and Quinn (February 2011).","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/author\/cbonham"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/418"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3410"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3438,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3410\/revisions\/3438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}