YANQING, China — Elana Meyers Taylor’s vision of the Beijing Olympics and the Olympics that are playing out have only a distant relationship to each other. She was sliding Saturday morning, driving her bobsled at harrowing speeds down a track here. That part fits. Little else does.
“I had this whole intention of coming here and doing this with my family,” Meyers Taylor said after her final training run at Yanqing Sliding Center. “I’ve done everything with my family. Every race, everything, it’s all been a family affair.
“And so now to have that shock of all of a sudden being at the Olympics and not being able to spend time with them, that’s something I didn’t plan for. We planned for all kinds of worst-case scenarios at the Games, but this was something that I didn’t see coming.”
The coronavirus may be abating in most parts of the world, but these are still, undeniably, the second straight Covid Olympics. Anyone in China with any affiliation with the Games realizes this. The bubble is real, and the bubble can be suffocating. Life is this: hotel, throat swab, bus, venue, bus, hotel. The Olympics as a cultural exchange is a notion from yesteryear and the future. Maybe someday. Not now.
Meyers Taylor is Team USA’s reminder of all that. These are her fourth Olympics, and she is seeking her fourth medal — her first gold. But on Jan. 29, two days after arriving in China, she tested positive for the coronavirus. So did her husband, Nic Taylor, an alternate on the American men’s bobsled team. So did her son Nico, nearly 2. So did her father, Eddie Meyers, who was permitted to make the trip to help with Nico.
