Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where our translucent winner body is finally starting to get a little tan. This Arizona sun is doing wonders for our vibes. It's Friday, February twenty eighth. On today's show, you'll hear from a true legend, one of the best Bob's letters in the world, Alana Meyers Taylor. We spoke a few weeks ago when she was fresh off a World Cup Monobob Race victory and preparing for the upcoming IBSF bob Sled and Skeleton
World Championships in Lake Placid. We talked winning after forty, racing after babies, two of them, meddling in a men's event, racism and sliding sports, and so much more. Now before we get to that interview, no length they need to knowe today, but we know we can't leave you hanging without a speed round of what to look forward to over the weekend. So in college hoops, we've got a big one Saturday night with number two UCLA hosting number
four USC. The two teams met in early February, with USC sophomore Juju Watkins scoring a massive thirty eight points to hand UCLA it's first loss of the season. Both teams are undefeated since so Saturday night, its contest is sure to be a good one. In Vib's Love has one game tonight and to tomorrow, and the PVF has double headers both Saturday and Sunday on the ice. The PWHL's inaction on Saturday. In Pro Hoops Unrivals got a double header tonight with two more games tomorrow, and it's
championship weekend for Athletes Unlimited. They'll crown the twenty twenty five AU Pro Basketball champion in Nashville, Tennessee on Sunday. We'll throw all those schedules. In our show notes, we got to take a quick break. Alana Meyers Taylor and Moore coming up next welcome back slices before our conversation with Alana Meyers Taylor, a black woman who is one
of the best Bob's letters on the planet. Did you know that one of the first Bob's letters to put Team USA on the map was also a black woman. That's right, y'all. It's time for an epic mashup of segments, not just our latest Black History Months Spotlight, but also the latest edition of Yes and okay, let's set the scene. Back in the early two thousands, the US had never won a women's bob sled medal. In fact, no country had because it was one of the few Olympic sports
left without a women's event. Then, ahead of the two thousand and two Winter Games in Salt Lake City, the International Olympic Committee added women's bobsled aka bob slay. Tomato Tomato Abiza Abitha enter Vanetta Flowers. She had an extensive track and field background as a sprinter and long jumper and earned NCAA All American honors seven times at the
University of Alabama, Birmingham. Flowers actually qualified for the US Olympic Trials twice, first in one hundred meters in ninety six, then in long jump in two thousand, but she never made Team USA and was just about ready to retire from competition when her husband Johnny, convinced her to try out for the bob sled team. She made that cut, became the top US breakwoman, and raced with teammate Jill
Bachin in the two thousand and two Games. The pair went on to win the first women's bob sled gold medal ever. Awarded. Flowers also became the first black athlete to win gold in an Olympic Winner Games. She actually didn't know that until a reporter asked her about it after finishing the race. She said, quote, I hope this won't be the end of it. I hope you'll see other African American girls and boys who want to give winter sports a try, because there are not a lot
out there. End quote. Flowers continued competing in bob's led events, winning a bronze medal at the four World Championships and finishing sixth that the six Olympics in turn in Italy. After six she retired from the sport. Flowers made a mark that can't be erased, and to this day, half of the US women's bob sled medalists have been black athletes like Alana Meyers Taylor. So yes to new friend of the show, Alana, and to Vanetta Flowers, who paved or should I say plowed the way.
Yes and.
All right, y'all, now that you know some of the history of the bob sled, let's get back to the present. Here's my conversation with Alana Meyers Taylor joining us. Now she's one of the best bob's sled in the world, hot off the heels of her first World Cup Mono
bob race victory two. Actually, she's a five time Olympic medalist, winning three silvers and two bronze across four different Olympics, a nine time World Championship medalist, owning four golds, two silvers and three bronze, and she's won twenty one World Cup races as of this recording. She's a graduate of George Washington University, where she was a member of the
softball team. She's the most decorated black athlete in the history of the Winter Olympics, an activist, a former president of the Women's Sports Foundation, Mom Tanico and Noah, and a former bride on say Yes to the Dress it's the money aka Alana Meyers Taylor. What's up a lotta that much?
So I find it very funny you brought to say yes to the dress. That's something most people miss. It's something I don't talk about much, but that was a good fine So I got.
To find that episode. When I was getting ready for my wedding, I became obsessive about say yes to the dress. And then of course as soon as I got married. I was like, I'm good now, but I've watched it a ton when I was getting ready.
Yeah, so did I before I was audit and ever since I was audit up like, I'm okay, that's good.
You're scarred from fourteen ou Clineman's okay. Most important question. First, are you a Bob Sled or a Bob Sleigh kind of gal?
Bob Sled for sure. I mean, the rest of the world says Bob Sleigh. But we're American. We make up our own stuff all the time, So Bob Sled it is.
Yeah, we're sticking with feet. Screw your meters exactly. We're going to do it our way.
I prefer the meters, though, the meters. We've been doing this for so long Kilograham's meters. All the metric systems works.
For me now, well, for sports, it's kind of necessary. You know. I did track, so of course we ran in meters and all the throws were in meters, so like all that stuff, it's hard to fight that one. But I like that you're sticking with Bob Sled. That's very American of you. Let's talk about those most recent World Cup wins I mentioned You've had so much success across the Olympics and World championships, you've pretty much done
it all. But you hadn't won an international mono bob race that's the one person bob sledding event for female athletes, until just a few weeks ago in Saint Mort's when you won twice. Was that on a checklist? Was it sort of hanging over your head? Is something you hadn't done?
No? Actually, because when I started monobob, and I didn't start monobob until after I had Nico, so I think twenty twenty twenty twenty one was my first season doing it, so it was a world series, it was just called something differently. So I had won event on that series, the World Series, but never won a World Cup. And actually I didn't even know I hadn't never won a World Cup, Like, I didn't really even understand the distinction.
So for that to be a stat and for that to get announced last week, I was like, Oh, that's pretty cool. But also I think it's just pretty cool because of how old I am, you know, to be able to do the solo monobob, you know, rely so much on your athleticism on top of your driving. So to be able to be forty years old and show that I could still win by myself was pretty cool.
Feat that is pretty cool, and we love as we say on this show, we quote Diana Tarassi, old people have dreams too. What were the feelings heading in then, if it wasn't something you were aware you needed to check off, was it just another race or was there this element of like, Okay, I'm over forty now I've got two kids, like this is every race is sort of an opportunity to continue to prove myself.
It was a little bit of both, because I had been so close, Like it just seemed like all season long, things just weren't going right. And I knew I could win races still, I knew I could be at the top of the podium, and it just felt like, you know, whether it was bad weather or bad circumstances or it just it felt like all the pieces just weren't coming together. So I was eager and I was frustrated. I've been frustrated the whole season. I was like, this luck's got
to give eventually. And even in that track in State Moritz, like I had been driving really well, I'd been doing really well at training, and then the first week they were there, they actually canceled the race, and I was like, oh, I've actually been doing really well on this track. So I was really eager to get back there and be able to have those opportunities to race Mono Bob again because I knew I could be successful on that track.
In particular, I knew like it was only a matter of time before the pieces came together and I could show that I could win again.
Talk about the monobob. It was just added a few years ago for those who aren't familiar with the sort of ins and outs of Bob's led. For nearly a century, men have competed in the two man and the four man events, and women just got their first Olympic bobsled event the two women in two thousand and two, and then the second the monobob was added twenty twenty two. Or did you start in twenty twenty one?
Actually they started doing it on the lower level circuit in after the twenty eighteen Olympics, so right after that year they'd started, but not on the highest level. So I was competing on the highest level with two man, so I just never had the opportunity until it finally got added to the World Cup or World Series circuit in the twenty twenty season, twenty twenty one.
Seasons, and then the Olympics in twenty twenty two.
Yep, yep, but it they'd always been around as like development sleds, so people will learn how to drive in it and then you just go and get into two man. But I had never actually driven a monobob, So it's funny when I started driving a monobob there were younger drivers who had way more experience in it than I had, even though I'd been driving at that for twelve years already.
Yeah, that's annoying. That's like when they introduced a new technology that young people immediately understand and I'm like, no, I've already learned all the other technologies. This is bullshit. Okay, So you had long campaign for the for Women event, but the people in charge decided instead to add the monobob to the Olympics instead. So what was the rationale given for that decision.
So there's quite a few different reasons that were given. Whether or not they're all true, who knows. But one of it was because they thought having the monobob would allow more nations to get involved than more small nations. The problem with the monobob though, is you still need two people because you still have the person driving it, but you still need people to move the equipment, to prepare the equipment, and all this kind of stuff. So you still need a breakman, whether or not you have
it or not. So it has allowed more nations to get involved, but just not as the levels they thought it would. And also they just said, oh, four men would be too expensive and all this kind of stuff. But the problem is with monobob you also have to buy new sleds. Like nobody had all these competitive monolbobs sitting around, so people had to buy new sleds versus a foe man. There were plenty of four man sleds sitting around. All you had to do was pick one up.
And as TMOSA, we had tons and tons of sleds. But now we're buying monobob sleds every year, which is something we might have to do as a foreman. So there's a little ins and out. But at the same time, like I was grateful to have an opportunity to even have two chances to medal, So it's like a double edged sword. I wanted it for women because I believe it gave more opportunities for more women to win a medal.
And I'm a team sport athlete coming from softball, like I wanted to have that team atmosphere versus the monobob. It just really gives the drivers another opportunity to meddle, which you know, the brakemen just have to do all the work on a monobob day but getting none of the glory, which is seems kind of backwards to me.
Okay, I have some follow ups for us non bob sled experts. First of all, men and women use the same sled so when you say that there's four men sleds popping around everywhere, the women could have used the same ones that are used for those Yep.
In twenty twenty two Olympics meet and a driver free del Duca actually use exact same sled in those games. So yeah, we use we used to say same sleds all the time.
A lot of pressure not to wreck someone's ride.
We actually wrecked each other's sleds. So he wrecked mine, I got him back, borrowed his, and wrecked his. Uh not intentional. Nobody ever wants to crash course sometimes.
Okay, second follow up. Then, so the mono bob they they thought that it'd be easier for there to be this less expensive sled and for more people to participate because across the world there might be more single folks who wanted to do this as opposed to amassing a four person team paying for a four person sled. But ultimately the onus is then on that one athlete to
pay for things and to do things. Tell us more about the brakeman and why they are so involved even if they're not actually in the sled.
Yeah, so the monobob, it's the same exact runners which are blades as the two person sled. So before a race you have to prepare those You have to stand them down, make sure there is frictionless as possible, get out any scratches, and one runner alone could take an hour at least, so you're talking four runners in four
hours of just on your feet preparing those runners. You have to move the sled back and forth, and so the brakemen are doing all that work on race days, even in a two man competition, like we don't move our own sleds. The brakemen and the coaches and everything. All the staff do that for us. So if you could imagine then on race days and a mono bob, all the brakemen, all from around the world are doing
all the work, moving all the sleds. But like I said, we come down and win a medal and they just cheer for us because they don't get one themselves, which is like I said, it's always felt backwards to me, and.
That's a totally different skill set. It's not something that a driver would also learn.
No drivers, we've learned all that, so we do it too, but and especially me, I spent three years as a brakemen, so we do it too, but not to the same extent as the brakemen do. The brakemen are like the workhorses, literally the workhorses, because they're responsible for so much of the push at the beginning regards to monopop has caused drivers to get in better shape because we have to
push the slide by ourselves. But in other regards, like it's just a lot of more work for breakmen who don't get to participate in it.
Yeah, I read about you recruiting a breakman by finding out that she could like deadlift a certain amount, and you were like, why don't you give it a shot? Come on over, I'll teach how okay, is getting a four women event in the Olympics program something you'd still like to see or that other Bob's letters are still pushing for.
I would like to see it. However, I've had this conversation now with the younger pilots and said, hey, look, this is your game now, like I'm done after these games, Like I've had my time. I think four man is a way to go. By the end of the day, If you guys decide you want to stick with monobob and that's what you want to see the future of a sport look like, then I'm going to support you in any way possible, Like it's time for you guys to step up and take over this, and like, I'm
going to do whatever I can to support you. But you know, I might disagree with you, but at the end of the day, I'm not going to be the one controlling direction of the sports. You guys to take the mantle and decide where you want to go.
Yeah, that, Saint Marit's victory was your first win since the birth of your second child. Noah in November of twenty twenty two. What were you feeling. Was it relief that you made it back on top of the podium or was it calm because you were certain you'd be back.
It was relief relief because, like I said, this season had been so much struggle from that point and just there's been so many times where I've been close, Like in Aldenberg, Germany, our first race of the year, I came down and I was in the top three, I was in metal position and then came down and crashed, and like to start the season off of that and then just to go in every week knowing I could win and just not putting the piece together, it was
just frustrating. So when I finally did it, it was just relief and it was like, Okay, now we're ready to do something. Now we're ready to get back in the swing of things, and now we can move forward and go into this the rest of the season and into the Olympic season knowing that we saw the potential to win. So it was really good feeling though.
Yeah, So the first mono Bob Gold, first since Noah, first after turning forty and Saint Moritz is where your husband Nick proposed to you at the metal podium at the twenty thirteen World Championships after you won gold and mixed team. So this is kind of a special place for you.
Huh yeah, it's it's like one of my favorite tracks in the world, one of my favorite places in the world. Like I could easily spend the rest of my life in Saint Marit's move there and be happy and drive taxi bobs forever. I don't know if that will actually happen. My husband still got a job to do and stuff. Somebody's got to afford all this, so yep, so we'll see.
But I just absolutely love it there, and if you have never gotten a chance to go and do it every time you go there, like last year, I had a different nanny than I do this year, I made sure they take Bob said rides down it, get past your rides and all that kind of stuff. So it's just one of the coolest places in the world. And it's the birth of Bob said. So you know you can't help but like love it there.
I've been to Switzerland, which I loved, but not Saint Maritz, so I got to add it to the list. I've always wondered, And I've never spoken to someone who got that proposal like on top of another joyful event, end of a race, after a title game, all that stuff. So what were the emotions. Was it like, oh my god that now I'm celebrating the race, or is it like whoa, this is so cool?
Well, initially I told him because I thought he was going to propose at Christmas, like you know, a normal Christmas proposal. So I told him. I was like, absolutely, do not propose it world championships, Like, don't do it. I want World Championships to be about worlds. I wanted
my proposal to be about by proposal. But it ended up being really cool, and I'm glad you didn't listen to me, because it was just like to have that moment and it'll be on the podium and get down on one knee and be freezing cold, and to have the memories and the video that will last last time, Like it's a really cool thing to look back on. And you know, we've got we've got a newspaper coverings of it in like Zech Republic covering and all over
the world people covering it. So that's a memory that we'll have forever, and it's pretty cool to go back there now with my two sons, and he was able to join us for that weekend too with the mono. Bab wins to have the whole family there again and look back and be like, oh my gosh, that was twenty thirteen. That was been in this sport a long time, twelve years ago.
You know.
To have that moment of humfortable circle is really cool.
Quite a precedent to set for the marriage though, that you told him not to and he did it anyway. Yeah, yeah, you got to look out for that. We're going to take a quick break when we come back more with Alana Meyers Taylor. I've got an internet friend named Ken Childs. He covers all things Bob's leed and skeleton and luge, so shout out his sight sliding on ice dot com.
And I asked him what he'd want to ask you if he sat down with you, and he said, he's interested in how you mentally handled coming back from maternity leave and not being as strong as a starter when you first came back, Like, what was the work you did to be patient getting your push start back?
Oh, I'm still not the most patient person. That's the hardest thing, and I'm still harder on myself, and actually coming back from Noah has been much harder than coming back from Nico, like both kids, unfortunately. I say unfortunately because I really had wanted to have a non sea section birth and I had sea sections both of them after laboring for two days with both of them, so.
Oh, man, rest in both worlds.
Yeah, So Noah was really really tough recovery. It took me a long time to run. It took me a long time to get back, and I still am not at the peak physical fitness that I was, like even eight months after having Nico, So it's been a much longer road and it is frustrating, like some days I
just won't have it. And it's very frustrating as an elite athlete to know that you still have the capability inside you, but it's so dependent on like what else I've got going on, like whether or not I got a good night's sleep, or whether or not I've been able to get enough water or all this kind of stuff.
And it's always been that way as an athlete, but now it's even more so so, like if I have a rough night with the kids, I'm now what a tenth behind the fastest pushers, where if I have a great night and if youthing goes well, then I can be even closer. So it's just going in there day after day and just putting in the work, but also realizing that, you know, I've accomplished so much in my
career and all of this is opportunity. Like I've got the opportunity to go out there and do something cool, do something special, and some days it's going to work out and some days it's not. And just keeping that perspective. It's like, this is a really cool experience. Not many people say they've been able to compete in elite sport at the age of forty with two kids. So I just go out there and do what I can every day.
Gratitude practice. That's good. It's very smart. Keeps you grounded. Fellow Bob's letter Fellow tam Usa Bob's letter. Kaylie Humphries is currently in the middle of that journey. She's coming back from baby. Have you spoken to her, given her any advice, maybe about some potential speed bumps she might not have thought of.
Yeah, it's funny. I just encourage her and try to encourage her. And then recently we raced in a track at Eagles, Austria, and it really is one of those tracks like this is the worst track to come back from postpartum because it's what we call a pusher's track
and the start time matters so much there. And so I just congratulated her on getting through that race because that was the race like you dread postpartum because you're like, ah, I'm not in I'm not in the bus shape yet, I'm really going to take a hit on the rankings, and you know, she came back and competed, and you know, we share stories sometimes about what it's like for the kids to be up at night and things like that, and now having been through that experience twice, you know,
just trying to help her in any way I can, because I know how difficult it is just to come back and just to figure out like the day to day of what it's like. And even for us, you know, we're traveling all a different place every week with our kids, driving sometimes eight hours in the car with a baby, stopping for breastfeeding, all this kind of stuff. So I try to share as many tips as possible with her and just try and encourage her. Like some days it's just going to suck, but it will be OK.
Yeah, you mentioned your nanny. In some women's sports in like the major leagues WNBA and WSL childcare cover just because I'm a part of player compensation. How does it work for bob'slod Is that your personal expense? Does USA bob sut help cover the cost for traveling and other things.
But it's a personal expense, USA Bobs I can't even afford to cover its whole team, let alone a nanny, So it is a personal expense and it's big personal expense, but it's the same, like you find ways to make it work. Unfortunately, like I knew this was a possibility after twenty towy two games because I was pregnant in those games, so surprise, surprise, didn't know that, but I knew it was a possibility after the twenty twenty two games.
So basically it just saved prize money that I had from those games to try and stretch it out to make it work. And you know, it's just it is a big expense, but at the same time, my kids are worth it, and I want them to have an opportunity to see the world and to travel with me, and also to see what it looks like for not only me, but all the women to compete at a high level. You know, I'm raising two boys, and it's so important for me that they have strong female role models.
You know, they're going to have strong male role models. My husband's one of them, like my father. They're going to have so many strong male models. It's important for me that they also see women going out there being professional athletes, being the elite at their sport, and doing it while being a mother as well.
Yeah, you made history in twenty fifteen when you became the first woman to earn a spot on the US national team competing with the men as a four man pop sled pilot, and then you went on to become the first woman to win a medal in international competition in a men's event. You did so on a team with your husband, Nick, who's a fellow Bob's letter. Tell us about that. What did you learn, What did you get from the experience. Why did you want to do it?
Well, first, I just wanted to do it because it just never made sense to me why women couldn't drive a fore man I mean, you had me as an Olympic medalist at the time, and there's so much opposition in Kille Humphries too trying to drive these for me and like, no, no, no, you can't. Women can't do it. Stop possible, you can't drive these sleds. And then you're just letting any guy, random guy who's driven a bob
sled maybe once track a Horman down the hill. It just didn't make sense to me, like that whole adage about women not being able to drive. So part of it was like my almost stubbornness and my own ego being like this cannot be that hard, Like this cannot be that hard. Of course, want to try it. But then it became so much more than that, Like it became an opportunity to do something and to compete at the highest level against guys, and it's so rare in
our sports that were able to do that. But also it was an opportunity to compete in the highlight sport, the highlight discipline of our sport, Like for a bob sled is the show, Like it's one woman and three guys jumping in this tiny sled, getting it together, and it's the fastest sport on ice, and I just want an opportunity. The competitor in me was like chomping at
the bit to give it a try. So when I had the opportunity, even though I couldn't get any guys to initially slide with me, I could give my husband because he didn't have a choice, so he was kind of a ringer.
Why wouldn't they participate with you?
Basically sexism, garden misogyny. Yeah, I even got asked, can you even drive a bob sled? And here I am coming off of a silver medal, you know, and it's just like you're going to get in this random person sled who's never driven a bob side, but you won't get in mind. And fortunately I had two guys, Dustin Greenwood and a g Adams that agreed to push me. And you know, they made a national team because of it, you know, so it worked out for them.
Well you look at that, Yeah, yeah, that works out.
It's crazy.
But did you hear from any of them that turns you down after that?
Oh? Of course, because they're still on the team and still talk to them, and yeah, now it's like a joke. Now it's like funny and stuff like that. But years later people would be asking me to compete in poor Man just because they wanted a competitive chance. They wanted to be compete against the top guys in the US and the top guys in the world, and they wanted a driver who could do it. And I'm like, well, guys, guess what, I'm out of the game now, so you
better find somebody else. But I love competing in a poor Man. It was so much fun, and I thought about specializing in it and just going after it and just trying to do Foreman and compete against guys and make an Olympics. But now the way the rankings work, like women have to qualify for the Olympics in both the monobob and the two men, whereas men can qualify in just the two men or just the four man, So our ranking is combined, so they make you do both disciplines.
That's bullshit.
Yeah, if you want to do four me, and you'd have to add in a four man on top of every weekend, so you'd be racing three times every single weekend, and it's just would be way too much. So it's kind of cut us out.
What's the rationale for that for making the women do both.
Good question. I'm not really sure you can do just the mono bob or just the two men. If you're from a smaller nation, if you're from a Nigeria, or if you're from an Australia or something like that, you could do it. But because our team's so big and because we're so competitive, there's just no you need the combined ranking. I don't really know what the rationale is. I guess it's just the drive up participation numbers.
But is this a team USA rule?
No, it's an international rule. Yeah, yeah, team say our rules still allow women to compete in for mean, and so does the international rooms. I mean, that's what's kind of cool about Bob side is our four man discipline
is actually an open gender category. It's one of the few sports that is actually open gender, which you know, people ask me all the time about trans rights and trans issues, and I was like, look, in our sport, it wouldn't make sense for somebody to come down and decide who can compete because we have an open gender category and to decide, oh, trans athletes are banned across the board just doesn't make sense when we have this discipline that's completely open to it. So yeah, I digress.
But it's just one of those kinds of things where fore men is the king of our sport, sport, and it's just something that I've always wanted to compete in, and it's something that I think more and more people should have the opportunity to compete in.
You've been an advocate for women in sports. You've talked about a number of issues, and specifically you've also talked about racism that you've faced in the sport despite all of your success, including a coach from another federation saying black athletes need to stay in the back of the sled because they don't have the mental capacity to be drivers, and a manufacturer of one of the fastest sleds on tour refusing to sell to black pilots has been quoted
as saying, if I wanted to see a monkey drive a sled, I'd go to the zoo. It is hard to imagine making more of a case for your place in the sport than everything you've accomplished. How do you reconcile the reality of your talent with the opinions of those people?
You know? I think it's still something that I have to work on, and it's still something that I think a lot of black athletes in our sport do struggle with because still to this day, a lot of times when we're talked about, we're talked about for athleticism and not our driving prowess. It wasn't actually until after the birth of my sons and I slowed down at the push that I started to get talking about as my
ability to drive a sled. So it's hard as an athlete to not internalize that and to think, oh, I'm just a fat, pushing athlete that could bang my way down a track and not take that personal. But at the end of the day, like I've won the medals, I have to have confidence in the fact that I had to drive halfway decent to do it. Couldn't just all ben athleticism, But at the end of the day, also, who the heck cares, Oh, I won the medals. The fact that my time was faster than your time is
all that matters. And so I try to have those conversations too with other black athletes and with other different athlete groups who are marginalized in this sport and just tell them, like, you know, win's a win, take it. Every race is only one by one hundred of the support who cares how you get there. And there is still some racism that exists in the sport, I mean, especially on the men's side, the lack of diversity within
the driver's seat. I think the only people of color drivers you see are the Korean team or the Chinese team, and that's it. Like internationally there's not much at all. So you just like it's one of those kinds of things where we need to continue to push it and continue to get more and more people within this sport and yeah, show people that it's even possible to do these winter sports as a person of color.
Yeah. You've also talked about black maternal health, deaf awareness, down syndrome awareness. When your racing career does come to an end, do you have plans to continue your advocacy.
Absolutely. I thought through the longest time that I wanted to go work for the USOPC and to be in that line of work and to you know, become the CEO of the USOPC, Like that was my dream goal for the longest enough time. But now having my children who are deaf and now being so much more in the deaf world and the disability space and things like that.
Like I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do after Bob said now, but I know it's become so important to advocate for my children and so important to advocate for those with disabilities. You know, I don't have a disability, so obviously I can't. I'm not the voice of disabled folks or anything like that. I would never try to speak over them. But if I could use my platform in any way, if the only purpose of me winning these medals was to spread death awareness, then
that's pretty cool. And that's a greater honor than I could ever think of. So yeah, my kids are my world, and you know, my world is completely changed. Like I wasn't in these communities beforehand, I wasn't involved with them. But I've come to this whole new world and it's a beautiful world. And I never could have known how beautiful ner diversity is and how beautiful deaf culture is without being ingrained in it. And so I could share that with other people that I'm going to I'm.
A decade plus into a charity I started with a young girl who has hearing AIDS, and it's called Here the cheers. We raise money for equipment and audiology services for kids so they can stay in sports, because most people don't know that insurance doesn't cover hearing aids and audiology equipment, which is wild. But thankfully some of the policies and bills around that are being challenged now, so
hopefully that'll change soon. But I'll have to wrangle you in for our next campaign and get you involved in some of our fundraising because it is such a beautiful space to work in. Next big thing for you, World Championships in March and Lake Placid. So what's your focus leading up to that event? What are you working on.
When in false disciplines two man monobob and going after it? You know, this is gonna be my last opportunity to win a World championship, and it's all my home ice, and I think it's a great opportunity. You know, also though, because it is to be my last World championship, I'm
really looking forward to enjoying it. I'm really looking forward to having my friends and family there, and you know, we didn't get to in Beijing, so being able to have my friends and family there and everyone there at a home event like I'm really looking forward to it. And you know, there's still a chance we might be in Lake Classic for the Olympics, so you just don't know. But it's just gonna be a lot of fun, and it's it's one more opportunity that I have to really
throw down against the best in the world. And when you have that opportunity, especially like now, like I think you take it for granted when you're younger, when you're twenty five, you're like, oh, yeah, another World Championships or whatever. But now looking back, like this is one last time to show what I could do. This is one last time to put on a good show and give a good race. And that's what I really like. I like
to put on a good show. Like my races are always close, they're always exciting, they're always intense, and I have there's no greater feeling than being on that line and like hearing the fans and hearing everyone cheer for you, and knowing that this is a great opportunity to just go out there and show what you've worked for all these years.
Yeah, further ahead, you've got twenty twenty six Milan Courtina Olympics. If you make the team, it would be your fifth Olympics and you're currently tied for fourth on the US career Winter Olympic medals list for all sports, which is incredible. But you've never won gold. How important is that to you? Before you retire.
It's important to have the opportunity to go after it. I used to think the gold medal was the only thing that mattered. I want every opportunity and I'm going to do everything I can to get there. Everything like no hold bar. I already told my husband's like, get the credit cards ready, because we're spending every dollar we have to next year to try and make this happen. Like whether it's bringing in a different nanny every week, or bringing in my kids or whoever to get me some sleep.
Those kids are not keeping you up in that week, that month, whatever it is.
Yeah, nope. So we're going to do everything we can to get there. But at the end of the day, I think how I compete is more important. How I go out there and show that it's possible to be forty forty one next year and put on this show and to be a mom and to go out there and to stand for so much more than just sport. To stand for disability, awareness, for women's rights, for different things, like it's important to show who I am in those competitive moments more so than to win a gold medal.
That doesn't take anything away from win that gold medal, Like I want it and I feel like it's like one thing missing off my resume. By the end of the day, if I don't get it, I'm going to be fine.
I love that if it sounds like you've done the work to understand the gravity of your career, the worth of your career, even without that gold, because there are so many studies about people who get that gold and then realize that wasn't really what they were looking for. It wasn't solving their problems, it wasn't filling the hole that they had for whatever reason, and there was so much more that they had to go work on to
figure out what made them happy. And it feels like you've already kind of got that, Like how do you balance that great perspective that you have with having the hunger and the mindset that you need to go try your hardest to win it.
Well, it was kind of in a ways, you know, the stuff I've been through with my sons, the stuff I've been through already as a parent and with my husband and whatnot, And like realizing that, you know, no amount of gold medals or no amount of metals is going to get my son the early intervention services he needed. I was like, what what how was all this for? Then? Like I can't get the services I needed, if I can't take care of my family, then what is this
all for? So I'm actually at the point, which is pretty cool, is that the only reason I'm here is because I genuinely want to be here, Like, there's plenty other things that I could be doing with my time. There's plenty of the things that my children could be doing that time, Like I'm dragging them all away around the world. I'm sure they'd just rather be staying at
home watching Sesame Streight, you know, right. So the fact that I'm here is generally because I want to be here, And me and my husband decided that if I was going to do this, that it had to be worth my time, that it had to make sure that every moment was going to be worth it, and to take away moments from my kids that I could be upstairs playing with them, or I could be doing different things
that I had to make it worth it. So every time I said on the ice, there has to be for a reason, and that reason is to try and win that gold medal. However, when I'm off the ice, I'm off the ice. When I'm outside of the Bob side, I'm outside of Bob side. So that kind of gives you the perspective that you know there's more things going on.
And also you know, in the US, as much as we love our Olympics, we love our gold medals and things like that, but the end of the day, like when I'm walking around Costco, nobody knows that I'm a Bob Slidder. When I'm doing my ticket target, the kid's throwing a temper Tanta or whatever, nobody knows that I'm a Bob Slader. So that keeps you in perspective too. It's like very humbling to be in the US and the country where we rain medals that you just one
of one of those faces. So I think winning a gold medal is very important to me and my family
and what we're trying to accomplish. By at the end of the day, like my life's going to go on whether I win, whether I lose, whether anything happens, like I hope to god I could win those gold medals, but at the end of the day, they're probably just gonna once I do, they're going to just go in a sack jur with the rest of them and we won't see them until the next time I do, when the banner appears or anything like that.
So I refuse to allow that. We're when the career is over, we're putting them up. They're not going in a soctar. I will not allow that. I don't know where you live, but I'll find out. Okay, last question for you. You mentioned that Lake Placid might be the spot for the Olympics despite it being a technically an Italian Olympics. In February, the IOC said the track is
supposed to go through a testing process in March. And you know, in some sports maybe the venue is not as important, but getting used to the ice and knowing where you're going to race is really important. So what's it been like dealing with the level of uncertainty that still exists in the lead up to those Olympics.
Yeah, that's most difficult things because number one, you want the course to be safe and without a without it being done with right now, they're supposed to do test runs in March. Without being done without the proper testing, then you never really know how safe it's going to be.
And so normally, ideally before an Olympics, you know a track has done at least two years beforehands plenty of times to get runs and to test the safety of it first and foremost, because it's one thing going fast on a track, it's a whole other thing just making it down. And we've had problems. We've had problems with tracks, whether it's Whistler in Vancouver Olympics, where whether it's even Beijing.
It's not a skeleton athletes. I mean you're talking about some of the tracks athletes have gone down and had liked altering injuries because we haven't had time to check the safety or the safety precautions weren't in place or something like that. Like our sports signing sports are extremely dangerous. So it is very much a concern that the track isn't done yet. So I hope everything goes well. I mean, my mom's Italian, you know, she wanted me to go
to these Olympics. I wanted to go to the Olympics and have a big Italian family celebration at the end of it. You know, it was really important for us historically to do it, But at the end of the day it's not safe, then I don't want to be anywhere near it, and that's the biggest concern for all of us, is the safety of it.
Well, and it's so frustrating. It reminds me of the events in the Seine at the Paris Olympics, like this is someone's entire life's work and money and time and effort, and to have people have to pull out or have the race be delayed, and then the timing of your preparation is affected because they can't figure out if there's ego lie in the fricking sin. That kind of stuff infuriates me. So I hope they figure it out and they get it sorted in time for you to make
a plan and stick with it. I've just been so fun to watch your success from Afar for such a long time. It's great to get to talk to you. Good luck with the upcoming events.
Thanks, I really appreciate it. And hopefully we're in Italy, and if we're not, it's still going to be a heck of Olympics in Lake Placids, So that'll be fun too.
We have to take another quick break when we return prepared to be edified. Welcome back, y'all. Some edification come in your way because it's time for another What the fact. So we talked to a lot about gender dis termination in Bob's Led, but its sister sport, skeleton, has its own history of backwards policies. Now, before we dig into that, here's a brief on how skeleton works. So, one at a time, individual competitors run as fast as they can
pushing a small sled down a frozen track. Then they hurled their bodies onto it, face down, headfirst and try to finish their run down the track faster than their opponents. Some scary shit. So the sport originated in Saint Maritz, Switzerland, on the first and oldest natural ice track in the world,
the Cresta Run. It was built in eighteen eighty five, and back then both men and women competed in an annual skeleton race called the Grand Nationals, But in nineteen twenty one, the Saint Murritz Toboggaining Club, which decides who is and isn't permitted to race the track banned female racers from competition. Eight years later, women were expelled from
the club entirely to boggining. Club president James Suddenley told the BBC that concerns were initially about skeleton and a link to breast cancer, but it was eventually understood that folks were just concerned that women were getting too good and too fast. That's some certified hatershit. But in twenty eighteen, wrongs were righted. In December of that year, Saint Murritz Tobognan club members voted to nix the band on women and in February twenty twenty four women raced in the
Cresta Runs Ladies Grand National Event once more. English writer Karina Evans won, becoming the first Ladies Grand National winner in one hundred and three years. This is what the fact brought to you by elf Beauty. And here's another fact. Elf Beauty's recent report shows that gender diverse boards lead to positive business results. S and P five hundred companies with above average gender diversity on their boards saw a fifteen percent boost in return on equity and a fifty
percent drop in earning's risk over a year. You can read the full report at Elfbauty dot com slash not So White Paper. We love that you're listening, but we want you to get in the game every day too, So here's our good game play of the day. Follow Alana's journey to the twenty twenty six Winter Olympics. She's on Instagram at Alana Meers Taylor And if you've never seen it before, go watch Vanetta Flowers and Jill Bochin's gold medal winning run from O two. Watching that sled
pickup speed. It's a thing of beauty. We'll link to it in our show notes. We love to hear from yours. To hit us up on email good game at wondermedianetwork dot com or leave us a voicemail at eight seven two two oh four fifty seventy and don't forget to subscribe. Rate and review slices. It's easy. Watch Sunshine and Beer and Barbecue and Thunder Drunk and Baseball and Africa by Toto and Sunset, rating twenty out of twenty years of fun review. This weekend marks the twentieth and final the
Heckler spring training trip to Arizona. So I got a shout out my super slice husband Brad aka the Heckler for twenty years of bringing folks together. It's hard to get adults to drop everything, whether it's kids, jobs, responsibilities, But every single year a wild pack of hyaenas aged about twenty five to sixty five would somehow make it
work because Brad created something truly special. Old friends partying alongside new friends, partying alongside folks who signed up for the trip solo, not knowing a soul, and found that they immediately became part of the family. You're a gem, Brad, and your trips were the highlight of the year for a whole lot of folks. You should be very proud. So here's to one last round of sunshine and beer and barbecue and thunderdrug and baseball and Africa by Toto
and Sunset. May every single slice out there find a community and a tradition as amazing as this one. Now it's your turn, Slices, rate and review. Thanks for listening, y'all, See you next week. Good game, Milana, Good game, Vanetta. Few Olympic sports without a women's event of equal standing or caliber. Looking at you to Cathalina Nordic combined Good Game with Sarah Spain is an iHeart women's sports production
in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You can find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Production by Wonder Media Network, our producers are Alex Azzie and Misha Jones. Our executive producers are Christina Everett, Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan, and Emily Rudder. Our editors are Emily Rutter, Britney Martinez, and Grace Lynch. Our associate producer is Lucy Jones and I'm Your Host Sarah Spain