Top 70 Elana Meyers Quotes

When bobsled is going right – and it sometimes goes wrong – it’s the closest thing I could imagine to being a superhero.

We’re a sport that was in obscurity for so long, we started to get used to that.

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.

You get this feeling in bobsled, like a combination of excitement, anxiety, and pure nervousness, and you get that combination only very few times.

We train six days a week, and each day includes some type of running or strength workout. It’s all about getting functionally stronger in the positions that matter for racing, which means balancing the strength between my quads and hamstrings.

Making the transition from softball to bobsleigh was difficult, but my family and friends believed in me when no one else would.

Being a minority athlete in this sport, it’s been wrought with challenges, but I wouldn’t consider myself a trail blazer.

A guy like Usain Bolt would be sick behind a bobsled.

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 love my teammates. I love my coaches.

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.

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.

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.

If you’ve seen ‘Cool Runnings,’ it looks pretty easy. You’re just riding in a sled, right? Not exactly. Bobsled actually involves a series of complex movements that aren’t like those in any other sport. You put your body into a really awkward position to push a 400-pound sled downhill on ice.

I am powered by the defeat in Sochi, as I am by all my defeats.

The Midland community is huge into softball. They have a lot of competitive men’s teams. We played at a beautiful stadium, and our games would be packed every weekend. I’m pretty sure people have my signature on softballs and they don’t even know. Because we would just sign so many autographs all of the time.

I was a shortstop in softball, and a lot of times I had collisions with base runners coming in, so I definitely have scars.

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.

You could have the best run of your life and lose a race because somebody has a better day. Or you could have the worst run and win.

I’m a squat person: I love squats. I love back squats, things like that.

I know how much my mom has impacted my journey and how much I wouldn’t be where I am without my mom. As much as she says she’s proud of me, I’m even more so proud of her because of what she’s done and how she’s been able to raise me and my sisters.

Find your passion, set a goal, go to work, evaluate, reassess, and repeat.

The more eyeballs there are on the sport, it will get more diverse.

My father’s NFL dreams never really felt like motivation to me, but it was something to aspire to. He was such a great athlete, the least I could do is try and use my athletic talent to represent my country in a different way. He represented as a Marine. Maybe I could do something to represent as an athlete.

I’m freakishly good at squatting.

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.

If I’m honest, the thing I remember the most was the team mascot, Freddie the Falcon. I really remember there was a McDonald’s nearby, and I remember eating a cheeseburger in the playground when the Falcon appeared. I’m not sure my dad appreciates that being my favorite memory of him playing.

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.

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.

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 don’t put limits on anybody.

It’s a challenge, but every single German or Canadian I want to beat, I still have to love them. That means competing the way God wants me to compete and helping my opponents if they have a need.

I’m not big on protein shakes – I think they’re pretty gross, actually – so I have to make sure I eat enough meat, fish, and other good protein sources.

I don’t like cold weather.

People say a two-man sled is like driving a racecar, and a four-man is like driving a truck. And it feels that way.

Being a brakeman is very physical, and success is mostly determined by how fast you can push a sled for about 30 meters.

Bobsled boils down to three things – your equipment, start, and drive. To win the Olympics requires all three.

I made driving mistakes in Sochi that cost me gold, and I’ll torture myself for the rest of my life about that!

I trash talk all the time.

Anything worth having is worth working for.

My favorite thing about South Korea is the people – they are so kind and helpful.

My dad was a football player, and I’ve been the same size since eighth grade, so I get how it can be hard when you don’t fit in with the ‘normal-size’ girls, or your butt and legs are too big for normal-size jeans.

Oh my gosh, cheat meals I could go on and on about.

For me, it’s always been about continually challenging myself and continually figuring out how to go down the hill faster.

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 think the hardest thing is that all of us would love to just stick to sports – but if you want us to be role models to kids, then you need to stand for more than just sports.

I feel like sport can transcend a lot of different things.

My father was an NFL running back, so I feel like I might be more susceptible, genetically, to CTE.

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.

Sport can transcend bias.

I played all kinds of sports growing up: soccer, basketball, track. You name it, I’ve probably played it.

I really, really wanted to be an Olympian. My parents knew about this dream of mine, and they suggested I try my hand at bobsled. They’d seen it on TV at the Salt Lake City Games in 2002 and thought it would be a good sport for me.

Biggest rival is Kaillie Humphries of Canada, and we are actually training partners. She was at my wedding, and I consider her a close friend.

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.

Our sport is one of the few on the winter side that is so diverse. It shows we don’t have to be limited by race or gender or whatever and how far we have come as a sport.

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.

There is a stigma in our sport that men are the better drivers. People think that, because the men compete in two-man and four-man, they are more versatile and that the women aren’t great drivers.

Traditionally, the treatment for a concussion has been to stare at a wall and wait for your brain to heal itself. Don’t watch TV, don’t read a book, don’t look at your phone, and definitely don’t train. It’s a torturous protocol for an athlete.

Bobsledding is an expensive sport.

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.