'Go For Your Dreams,' GA Olympian Tells Welcome Home Crowd

DOUGLASVILLE, GA — "Go for your dreams," Douglasville's own three-time Olympic medal winner, Elana Meyers Taylor, told the welcome home crowd at Arbor Place Mall Monday.

Hundreds, including Georgia Governor Nathan Deal, gathered to give a warm welcome home to Meyers Taylor after she and her bobsled teammate, Lauren Gibbs, earned a silver medal in the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea.

"I'm proud to call you a Georgian," Deal said. "You have done a great honor for all of us. You are giving hope and encouragement to young people. Because what you have done is, you have taken your athletic skills and you've applied them in an area that nobody in Georgia would have probably ever anticipated. You're an excellent example of an outstanding individual that a local community like this can take pride in."

Meyers Taylor said her journey from Arbor Station Elementary School, through Chestnut Log Middle School and Lithia Springs High School, to the Olympics, wouldn't have been possible without knowing the type of support she had at home.

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"This is amazing to be able to come home and have a welcome like this," she said. "It's pretty incredible for me to be standing here, especially thinking what I do on a daily basis. I push bobsleds. So for other girls from Georgia, from Douglasville, to have a reception like this, is pretty amazing. Douglasville has been my home for the past 30 years, so it's been incredible to be from this town and from this state and have all of you guys share in my journey."

Meyers Taylor had some advice for up and coming Olympians.

"I would just tell them to go for their dreams," she said. "No matter what the rest of the world tells them, no matter where you come from, you can be whatever you want to. The biggest thing is, nobody would expect a girl from Douglasville, Georgia, to be a bobsled Olympian. So it doesn't matter what the rest of the world thinks. It only matters what you believe. And as long as you're willing to put your heart and soul and efforts into it, you'll get what you want."

It was the third consecutive medal for Meyers Taylor after earning a silver in the Sochi Olympics in 2014 and a bronze medal in Vancouver in the 2010 Winter Olympics. In the 2018 Winter Olympics, she was denied the gold by a German bobsled team; only 0.07 seconds separated gold from silver medals. It was the closest between first and second in any Olympic women's bobsled race.

After medaling in the past three Winter Olympic Games, what's next for Douglasville's Olympian?

"Fortunately," she said. "Bobsled is a sport for older people. Our junior age is 26 and under. I really feel like I can be competitive for another four years so I'm going for Beijing 2022 and we'll see what happens. Hopefully, more Douglasvillians and more people from the state of Georgia will follow in my footsteps. I need a brakeman for the next games so we're always searching. And hopefully that person comes from Georgia. How cool would it be to say in 2022, we have an all-Georgia sled?"

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Photos by Patch Editor John Barker