Team USA is a gold mine of newcomers and returning stars.
Mikaela Shiffrin, 22
Alpine ski racer
“I remember watching replays of Bode [Miller] winning his medals in Salt Lake City. I dreamed about winning Olympic medals like him, but I did not expect that it would really happen until it actually did.”
Kelly Clark, 34
Snowboarder
“I started snowboarding before it was cool. It was not an Olympic sport and there was no such thing as the X Games. I never saw it as a dream until snowboarding became an Olympic sport. I got on the U.S. team at 16 in the 11th grade, and I was traveling internationally, competing at a high level. Telling my parents that I wanted to pursue snowboarding instead of a college education was scary for them, so I’d made a deal to have one season to make it happen post-high school. That was the year of the 2002 Olympic Games, and it did not become a reality for me until I made the U.S. Olympic halfpipe team.”
Maia Shibutani, 23
Figure skater
“The first Olympics we remember paying attention to was the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. [My brother and I] were seven and 10 years old, and I remember sitting on the floor in our living room, listening to the Olympic fanfare, watching skating and wanting to be like Michelle Kwan. We definitely dreamed of competing at the Olympics. Looking back, having an Olympics in the United States when we were at that age made an impression and inspired me.”
Elana Meyers Taylor, 33
Bobsledder
“My earliest memory of seeing bobsled was the 2002 Winter Olympics. I saw Vonetta Flowers win gold and thought it was really amazing that a person who looked like me was succeeding in the Winter Olympics. I thought it was awesome that she could convert, and I thought the sport itself was something really cool and I wanted to give it a try. What propelled me to dedicate my life to it was the possibility of competing in the Olympics. It was a sport that you could get into later in life. Also, the speed attracted me. When I was younger, we used to ride down hills on skateboards on our stomachs and backs, so it seemed like something right up my alley.”
Aja Evans, 29
Bobsledder
“Every four years, my family would watch the Summer Olympics and specifically watch the track and field events. I imagined myself participating as a sprinter. Watching "Cool Runnings” [about] the Jamaican Olympic bobsled team story was the first time that I visually watched a bobsled race. I became interested in the sport much later in life after college. My old college coach suggested that I look into the sport because of my background in track and field, [and] my speed and strength.”
Hilary Knight, 28
Ice hockey
“My earliest memory of my sport was in 1998 when Team USA won gold in hockey. I wrote and illustrated a book for a school project in elementary school, and it has a picture of the USA v. Canada rivalry on the back cover. … USA won, obviously. In 2005, when the U.S. national team played at my high school, I thought, ‘Yes, I can do this. I need to do this.’ It’s funny, though, because I told my grandmother when I was five years old that I was going to be in the Olympics, but it wasn’t until later when I had an ‘aha’ moment that it actually felt tangible and close.”
To learn more about the athletes, visit teamusa.org. The Winter Games will broadcast live, starting on Feb. 8.
