World champion bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor came to Kennesaw State’s campus on Wednesday, Oct. 3, to speak to the women’s basketball team about her career as well as empowering female athletes based on her own experiences.
Two players from the basketball team recognized Taylor while she was training at Life University and notified the assistant coach, who then set up the event. Taylor spoke at length to the team with the intent to inform and inspire.
Taylor was featured in the past three Winter Games in the two-woman bobsled event, winning bronze as a brakeman in Vancouver before becoming a pilot and winning silver in both Sochi and PyeongChang. In between her Olympic appearances, she won two World Championships in that event.
Despite all of her success, she has faced difficult challenges along the way including injuries and damaged bobsleds.
While training for the 2014 Sochi Olympics, Taylor was involved in a dangerous accident. The brakeman did not pull the brakes in time and the sled careened into a cement barrier, destroying the vehicle.
“There were black pieces of carbon fiber going everywhere, and I knew something was wrong immediately,” Taylor said. “[My coach] could not believe we had done that much damage to the sled.”
The biggest issue with the accident was that each bobsled team was only allocated one sled. Fortunately, a display sled at the Olympic Village was available and Taylor decided to use it. She helped take apart the display sled and attached the parts to the frame of the old sled, achieving a medal days later with the impromptu vehicle.
Four years later, Taylor faced another major challenge when she sustained a leg injury a week before the Olympics. Despite having to change her entire practice routine, she fought through and achieved silver again.
“I got off the plane and immediately got into a wheelchair,” Taylor said. “I sat down with my coaches, developed a plan, and basically I was going to race.”
For all the physical challenges she has faced, her greatest challenge was attempting to lead a group of men in a mixed four-person team.
She was chosen to be a pilot for three other male bobsled drivers of her choice, yet none of them desired to be instructed by a woman when she approached them. Taylor faced a barrage of derogatory language and was questioned about her credibility.
“As shocked and astonished as I was, I was determined to make this happen,” Taylor said. “It was some of the most vulgar things I’ve ever heard, not just about women but also my competitors who had beaten me.”
Her husband, also a bobsledder, decided to fly out to be on her team and to support her. Afterward, two other men joined to compete with them.
Overall, Taylor’s message to student-athletes was that chaos is an inevitability and that it is how one reacts to the chaos that defines who they are.
“As soon as you think everything should be smooth, that’s when things usually go horribly wrong,” Taylor said.
