With the Winter Olympics closing, I want to highlight one athlete I hadn’t heard of before this week. The Olympics inspires us, sometimes through losses as much as through wins, as I shared yesterday.
But here’s the story of a gold medalist, one of the six Christian athletes that Christianity Today highlighted on February 16. The article opens:
Around the world, Christians live out their calling in many ways, including in athletics. These six Olympic athletes have used their global platform as an opportunity to share the gospel. They are competing at an elite level in their sport and use that as a catalyst for telling others about the ways God has worked in their own lives. In a world where division is everywhere, this year’s Winter Olympics provide a chance for global Christians to root for their brothers and sisters in Christ.
And one of those athletes is Elana Meyers Taylor, a bobsledder. Her Christianity Today bio opens:
Milan Cortina is the fifth Olympic Games that Elana Meyers Taylor, a mom of two, has competed in. With three silver and two bronze medals, Taylor is hoping for gold this year. Her husband, Nic, has also competed in the Winter Olympics, and the two met at a Bible study held near the US Olympic Training Center in New York in 2011. Before they got married, the couple got baptized together.
Her attitude?
Regardless of whether I win a gold medal or never compete again, I just have to trust that God has a plan for my life and I’m called to be his representative through the sport and outside of the sport.
But this year, she did win the gold medal, and someone posted this on Facebook:
At 41, veteran bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor captured her first Olympic gold medal, becoming the oldest Olympic gold medalist in history.
Yet for Meyers Taylor, her greatest title isn’t “Olympian.” The most decorated Black athlete in Winter Olympic history has consistently emphasized that faith and family come before medals.
She and her husband are parents to two sons, both born deaf, with Nico also having Down syndrome. By returning to the Olympics as a mother of a child with special needs, she hopes to inspire others — showing both the challenges and the deep joy of their journey.
Open about her Christian faith throughout her career, Meyers Taylor once said:
“God put me here for a specific reason and I don’t think it’s just to win medals. At the end of the day, I’m in this sport to glorify God — so if that means I come in last place or I win the gold medal, that’s what I’m going to do.”
Bless her. And bless God. Sometimes the good guys win!
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. (1 Corinthians 9.25, ESV)
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3.12 – 14, ESV)