elana meyers

My favorite posts of 2014: The Olympics experience

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I am spending the next few weeks looking back at 2014, recapping the best stories I watched or read while also reflecting on my favorite blog posts of the year.

A cool thing happened last week:

I posted my 200th entry to the Telling The Story blog.

I continue to truly enjoy the experience of writing a blog, hosting a podcast, and communicating with storytellers and journalists worldwide. This platform has allowed me to share my own experiences in the field and provide a window into my day-to-day life.

No experience this year stood out quite like my month at the Olympics.

I flew to Russia on February 1st and didn’t get back to America until the 26th. During that time, in addition to my primary duties reporting for my TV station and others, I wrote 15 blog entries that saw significant traffic.

Here are my five favorites, with excerpts from each:

Arriving in Sochi, awaiting sleep (2/3/14): 3:34 AM.

The clock on my computer is staring back at me, screaming, “GO TO BED!” in its non-threatening, tiny white font.

And yet, I am nowhere near tired.

Welcome to the road-trip life, nine time zones away.

I have officially arrived in Sochi, Russia, home of the 2014 Winter Olympics. This is a truly exciting opportunity, one that I cannot wait to tackle.

But first, somehow, I have to get my body right. (more…)

MY OLYMPICS JOURNEY: No shame in silver for Elana Meyers

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The Olympic spotlight is extremely bright but cruelly brief.

It shines on an event, and that event’s mostly anonymous athletes, for a few days before zooming to the next.

Win a gold medal? You might earn another day before the spotlight leaves you dark.

Win a silver, and you fade even faster. And the viewing public will have barely learned your name, let alone everything you have battled to reach the Olympic Games.

In the case of Elana Meyers, that is truly a shame.

The Douglasville, Ga. native is an inspiration, someone who may not have won a gold medal, but is so worthy of the golden spotlight.

Meyers, despite standing on gold’s doorstep, took silver Wednesday night. The 29-year-old, alongside partner Lauryn Williams held the lead in women’s bobsled through three of four heats. Only in their final run did they make one costly mistake – bumping a wall on an early curve – to fall into second place. The headline, for some, may read: “USA Women’s Bobsledder Loses Lead, Misses Out on Gold”.

That may be a correct headline, but it is not the right one.

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MY OLYMPICS JOURNEY: Elana Meyers rocks the mountains

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I could not tell.

Speaking with Elana Meyers after her record-setting start to the 2014 women’s bobsled competition, I watched her display the same calmness and composure she has shown in the past.

She spoke of her performance as if it were a training run, not Day One of the Winter Olympics. She talked of how, while she was certainly excited to sit atop the leaderboard, she needed to focus on the overall picture and work on fixing the mistakes from her first two heats.

She seemed very level-headed.

And I could not tell if she was faking it.

Meyers had to have been doing mental backflips, right? Team USA’s top bobsled driver had to have been thrilled with coming out of the gate and setting a track record on her first run. She had to have been relieved, after crashing her sled twice in last week’s training runs, to have taken two clean, beautiful slides down the Sochi track.

More than that, she had to have been bubbling with excitement. After winning a bronze medal as a brakeman in 2010, Meyers learned how to drive the bobsled in half the time usually required. She entered this season as America’s best and remained so entering the Olympics.

After one night, she stood temporarily as the world’s top driver, two heats away from potentially realizing her gold medal dreams.

She had to have been absolutely amped, right?

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MY OLYMPICS JOURNEY: A tale of two Atlanta bosledders

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The state of Georgia, with its scorching summers, may not seem like a hotbed of the bobsled.

And yet, in the past five years, the Peach State has produced two of America’s best.

Getting to know them has been a fascinating part of my Olympics journey.

I met Elana Meyers in 2009, months before she won the bronze medal in bobsled in the 2010 Winter Games. I followed her through the journey, from training in Lake Placid through her post-medal celebration in Vancouver. I interviewed family members and learned a great deal about her path to Olympic success.

But in the past four years, I have received a fuller picture.

Meyers is an active presence on Twitter and in the blogosphere. In fact, so are many of her teammates and fellow Olympians. And these athletes, unlike those in the major American sports, use their online platform to go into great detail about their lives.

And the lives of winter sports athletes are extremely atypical — and, some might say, full of contradictions.

First, consider this: Athletes like Meyers are professionals and among the best in the world at their sports. They shine on the world’s largest stage every four years; they receive access to some of the most advanced sporting equipment and technology; and they get to travel the world annually during their sports’ seasons.

Now, consider this: Athletes like Meyers often have to work part-time jobs to raise money for extra gear. They have a six-month off-season in which many study at online universities for their degrees. They rarely receive endorsements, have to hunt for sponsors, and, except for the Olympics, toil in anonymity despite their elite level of competition.

Perhaps that’s why athletes like Meyers put themselves out there online. They offer a window to anyone who is interested into their truly unique existences.

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