Super-vet and rookie combine for US in search of bobsleigh gold

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy -- Medal-laden Elana Meyers Taylor is in her fifth Olympics while Jadin O'Brien had barely seen, let alone touched, a bobsleigh until late last year, but this week that unlikely U.S. pairing will be targeting gold in the Two-Woman event in Cortina.

Meyers Taylor, 41, arrived with two silver and two bronze medals from the Two-Woman event, starting in 2010.

She got another silver with the first running of Monobob four years ago and then, on Monday, finally topped the podium with a dramatic Monobob gold.

There is nothing she does not know about the sport.

The same cannot be said for O'Brien, who was competing at the USA Track & Field championships as a heptathlete last August with no thought of getting into a bobsleigh.

That was until Meyers Taylor, always on the lookout for the sort of powerful sprinters necessary for success, contacted her.

"It has been a whirlwind," O'Brien, 23, told journalists in Cortina ahead of her event that begins on Friday.

"I finished my last track meet August 2nd and started training for bobsled August 4th. Ten days after that, I was in Lake Placid doing the rookie camp. Two weeks after, I made the World Cup team and now we are in Europe.

"I could never have predicted my life would turn out this way, but I'm incredibly grateful, and I've loved every second of it."

Not quite every second.

SPECTACULAR CRASH

A month ago, O'Brien and Meyers Taylor were involved in a spectacular crash in St. Moritz, Switzerland that the veteran pilot described as one of the most violent she had ever seen.

"It was not easy getting back on the line to race in St. Moritz after that," O'Brien said. "I was in a lot of pain, I couldn't really move and we were both very, very beat up.

"But in a weird way I think it brought us together as a pair. I decided to put my body on the line for 'E' because I felt that I had the best chance of getting her in a top 10 finish. We did place in the top 10 and I think that was a testament to who we are as athletes and what we're capable of doing together.

"Honestly, the sky is the limit for both of us."

At the start of the Games, Meyers Taylor sat alongside O'Brien looking more like a proud parent than a teammate and said that though she was going all out for the gold that had proved just out of reach at four Olympics, her vast experience has given her something of a Zen approach.

"It would mean everything and it would mean nothing all at the same time," the mother of two deaf sons said of the prospect of topping the podium.

"I wanted to approach this sport with joy and integrity. I am going to give it everything I've got and see what happens, but, at the end of the day, a gold medal is not going to change who I am."

Unchanged or not, she now has that gold, saying the fact she wanted, rather than needed it helped her achieve it and now she will be pouring all her experience and energy into helping O'Brien get the same feeling.

One of the women trying to spoil that dream is teammate Kaillie Humphries, twice a gold medalist in the event for Canada but now representing the U.S. at the age of 40.

Germany remains the favorite, in the form of Laura Nolte and Deborah Levi, who were crowned World Cup champions last month after winning five of the seven races.

Nolte had looked nailed on for gold after three runs in the Monobob final but wobbled on her last run to drop to silver and will be desperate to make amends.

--Reuters, special to Field Level Media