Elana Meyers Quotes

There is the potential for dreams to come true, for records to be broken, and medals to be won, and at this time everyone believes that they individually have the potential to make their dream a reality.

In Lake Placid we have Bible studies and it's awesome to be able to share your struggles as an athlete and as a Christian with others Christian athletes. That's 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.

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 - Park City, Utah, and Lake Placid, New York.

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.

I've got some other great teammates like Dallas Robinson and Johnny Quinn on the men's side who have been tremendous at showing Christ's love. It's 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.

I know that God is working through me within this sport. I know He's put me here for a purpose and it's 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'm called to do what He wants me to do.

As Christians, we're asked to give. In my sport, if someone needs equipment or help with something, regardless of who they are as a competitor, I'm called to help them for a higher purpose. So it definitely affects everything I do. It's not easy. It's very hard to love everyone.

It's one of the greatest honors I could ever imagine - to be able to represent my country and to be able to wear "USA" on my back. It's an incredible honor. It's 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.

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's 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.

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 - Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Douglasville, Georgia. I really have a home there.

The Lord calls us to love everybody. Every day it's a challenge. Within this sport, I'm 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.

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.