Photo by Lolo Jones After winning the Bronze Medal in 2010, Douglasville resident Elana Meyers upped her game and earned the Silver Medal in the 2014 Olympics in Sochi. We talked with her for about 20 minutes after she got back. For the complete interview, visit our website at www.newsandviewsusa.com/interviews.
First of all, congratulations on winning the silver medal! That’s an unbelievable accomplishment. Thank you, I appreciate that.
It sounds like you’ve been really busy since you’ve gotten back. What have you been up to? Yeah, I’ve been super crazy busy. So, I got back and one of the first things I did was I went to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and did an event there. BMW, because they build our bobsleds, brought a bobsled down there for the kids. They brought mini-bobsleds down, it was just such a wonderful event. That’s how everything started and it has just gotten busier since then.
When you went to Sochi, did you feel you had a really good chance to win a medal? Yeah. You know, when we were training, I was having really good training down times, and I felt confident that I could nail the track and have the kind of runs that I wanted. Unfortunately I didn’t exactly have the runs that I wanted, but they were still good enough to win the silver medal.
46 |
VILLA RICA NEWS & VIEWS
Going into the final heat of the Bobsled in the Olympics, you had a slight lead, but the sled from Canada had gained on you in the 3rd one. Was there more pressure to try to hang on to the lead? I didn’t really feel that much pressure. I was just trying to go out there and execute, and do the things that I know how to do. Kaillie Humphries and I had been going back and forth all season. I finished second to her in our overall World Cup season. I knew it was going to be a battle between the two of us, and I was prepared for it, and I really didn’t feel any pressure. Unfortunately, I just made a mistake.
Yeah, that happens. Was that your best World Cup season so far? Yeah, so far. I was first or second in every race except one. And in the one I wasn’t in, it was literally just a bad 10 meters. It wasn’t a bad full run – it was a bad 10 meters that ended up costing a 12th place finish – for a bad 10 meters, (laughs) 10 meters in the WRONG spot.
you have a curve and then another curve back to back, you kind of know “OK that’s not that bad, I can make up this time”. But when you hit it in a straightaway, you’re just like “Oh No!”
What was it like to get on the bobsled for the first time? I was excited. It was a great thing to be able to try, but scared wasn’t the word. I didn’t know what was going on, I was disoriented. But, I think there is a little bit of fear, any time you bobsled because you know something very bad can happen. The cool thing about bobsledding is I get to face that fear every single day.
That has to be an adrenaline rush. I bet your heart rate goes way up during a run like that too. Oh yeah – and it’s so much fun. I can’t think of anything more fun to do than to drive a bobsled. It is…I can’t even put into words. When you hit a good run, when you’re really firing on all cylinders it feels like you’re just flying, because you are gliding so smoothly. You feel like a superhero.
That’s got to be agonizing if you hit the wall or something, and you think, “Oh man”. That’s just got to be a bad feeling when that happens.
Was the bobsled hard to learn as a new sport, or was it pretty easy?
Yeah. And especially in that part because I hit it in a straightaway, and when you are in a straightaway, and the same thing in Sochi, but when you’re in the straightaway it’s just like “Oh my gosh!” and you know immediately. When
It’s a hard sport for everybody to learn. Even though my brakeman has only been doing it 6 months, that’s more of a testament to the crazy athlete she is than anything else. When you see that you think it’s easy, but she’s one of the fast-
Fitness & Wellness