ELANA MEYERS

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.

I'm a representative of something that's greater than myself. I'm not just representing myself or my country: I'm representing Christ and what He's done through me.

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

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

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.

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

People win medals in all shapes and sizes! And I can't help but say that finding a fiance who loves me unconditionally at any size has played a huge role in my body confidence.

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

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.

I'm E Money because I'm money when it counts. Not sure exactly where or when it started, but I was called it in softball, too.

Regardless of what you look like, regardless of where you come from, you can be involved in winter sports.

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

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

I've encountered a lot of biases as a woman.

For most people, they only thing they know about bobsled is 'Cool Runnings.' Well, 'Cool Runnings' was, of course, four men in a bobsled, and four-man is considered the highlight of our sport. It's what everybody knows. It's what everybody watches. And it's the big dog of our sport.

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.

Having my dad play for the Falcons, what it did was really to expose me to a whole bunch of other elite-level athletes, which I think gives me an advantage and allowed me to understand what goes into sports. It is more than going out onto the field and going out onto the ice and competing.

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

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

I don't like cold weather.

In Sochi, I felt like I lost a gold.

I've been on every type of nutrition plan you can think of.

I converted from softball. We've got volleyball, we've got track and field. Athletes come from anywhere and then convert into bobsled.

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.

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.