Team USA chaplain Asif Sheikh. (Photo courtesy of Asif Sheikh)
THIS IS SPORTS SPECTRUM’S INSIDE THE CHAPEL PODCAST
Asif Shaikh serves as one of the chaplains for the United States Olympic team. Raised a Muslim, Shaikh became a Christian later in life. This week on “Inside the Chapel,” with the 2022 Winter Olympics in full swing, Shaikh brings a message about “chasing the lion” and overcoming fear.
“The greatest fear in your life today can also be your greatest triumph,” he said. He talks about the disappointment many Summer Olympians felt after the Tokyo Games were delayed a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but also the fear and anxiety that the delay and pandemic have brought. Today’s message is all about facing those fears and disappointments.
U.S. hockey players Jaccob Slavin (left) and Tage Thompson. (AP Photos)
The United States is partying like it’s 1980.
For the first time since the memorable “Miracle on Ice” team at Lake Placid, New York, the American men took home the hockey gold medal at the Winter Olympics with a 2-1 overtime victory against Canada in Milan, Italy.
With NHL players participating in the Games for the first time since 2014, stars littered the ice as the bitter rivals played to a 1-1 tie at the end of regulation. Matt Boldy of the Minnesota Wild got the United States on the board first with an incredible goal six minutes in, then Canada responded toward the end of the second period with a goal from Cale Makar of the Colorado Avalanche. The teams dueled to a scoreless third period, which set up the heroics that ensued.
Streaking down the left side of the ice toward the goal, American Jack Hughes of the New Jersey Devils — missing two front teeth from a high stick earlier in the game — received a pass and in one seamless motion zipped a shot into the far corner of the net to send the United States into a frenzy.
It was the United States’ second overtime winner in this Olympics; Jack Hughes’ brother, Quinn, also netted a game-winning goal in overtime against Sweden in the quarterfinal round. Although the United States and Canada have faced off in the gold-medal match eight times at the Winter Olympics, Sunday’s triumph was just the second U.S. victory (1960 was the other).
Among the Americans flinging their gloves in the air in celebration of Hughes’ goal on Sunday was Jaccob Slavin of the Carolina Hurricanes and Tage Thompson of the Buffalo Sabres. Slavin was +1 during his time on the ice Sunday while Thompson accumulated a team-leading four shots on goal. Slavin, a defenseman, and Thompson, a center, were both crucial to Team USA’s run. Slavin provided stout defense throughout the trek to the goal medal while Thompson recorded goals against Latvia, Germany and Slovakia.
Slavin and Thompson are also bonded by something much deeper than even a national allegiance. Both are also professing believers in Jesus Christ and have appeared as guests on the Sports Spectrum Podcast. Slavin has appeared multiple times, speaking about just how important Jesus is to him during an October 2024 episode.
“[Jesus is] everything,” he said. “He’s Lord of my life. If He’s not Lord of everything, He’s not Lord at all. He’s a gracious Friend. I live my life because of Him and what He did for me. My purpose in life, my purpose in my marriage, my purpose of being a father, it’s all to glorify Him because He’s worthy of that glory.”
The 31-year-old has spent his entire 11-year career in Carolina, making the playoffs for the past seven (and likely eight) and earning a spot in the All-Star Game in 2020. Even more important to him, however, is winning the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy in 2020-21 and 2023-24, awarded annually to the player who’s best demonstrated “sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing ability.”
“Out of all the awards that I’d want to win, that’s the one I feel like means the most to me because that exemplifies how I try to carry myself, how I try to live. And I do that by trying to represent Jesus the best I can,” he said on the podcast. “An award like that — having good sportsmanship, being a gentleman in a violent game — I’m thankful the Lord has given me the temperament that I have and He’s led me by His Spirit. People may not know it, but what they’re seeing is Jesus through me.”
Like Slavin, the 28-year-old Thompson has also appeared once in the NHL All-Star Game (2023), and he also grew up hearing about the things of God. And at around the age of 13, Jesus revealed to Thompson his need for a personal relationship with Him.
“That’s where my faith really started to turn,” Thompson said on the podcast in July 2023, “from just going through the motions and a title of being a Christian to understanding the actual relationship part of walking with Christ and the sacrifice that He made for all of us.”
He also explained the immense freedom he’s felt from the years-long process of learning to submit to God’s plan for his life.
“I think when you take a step back,” Thompson said, “and realize that God’s in control and He has a plan for you and His plan is far better than anything that we could ever imagine (Ephesians 3:20), you just kind of give it over to Him and sit back and enjoy the ride.”
Both Slavin and Thompson have certainly enjoyed the ride to the gold medal together as teammates representing the United States. But now, just like that, the two become competitors once again in a challenging Eastern Conference. Carolina (36-15-6) is second in the East while Buffalo (32-19-6) is sixth.
After its 20-day break for the Olympics, NHL games resume on Wednesday.
U.S. bobsledders Elana Meyers Taylor, right, and her brakewoman Jadin O'Brien at the 2026 Winter Olympics, Feb. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)
Fresh off of her first-ever gold medal, to go with her five other Olympic medals, Elana Meyers Taylor is once again in position to add to her legacy. She won the monobob event at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Cortina, Italy, on Monday, and is set for the two-woman bobsled competition on Friday and Saturday alongside brakewoman Jadin O’Brien.
But, the pair’s push for another medal nearly ended in tragic fashion before it ever started.
During a January training run ahead of a World Cup race in Switzerland, Meyers Taylor and O’Brien were involved in a violent crash. Their sled lost control, slammed into the wall multiple times and flipped. O’Brien was ejected from the sled, flipped in the air, landed on her back and slid down the ice. She thought she was paralyzed.
Meyers Taylor continued down the track in the sled, and only a small weight plate, installed the week prior, kept her from being impaled by one of the sled’s axles. Even for Meyers Taylor — a veteran of more than 20 years in the sport — the crash stood out.
“Elana has been doing bobsled for 20 years, and she said that was one of the most violent, horrific crashes she’s ever seen or been a part of,” O’Brien, a former track and field national champion at Notre Dame, told Notre Dame Magazine earlier this month.
O’Brien eventually regained feeling, and hospital X-rays showed no broken bones. That was enough for her to know she was good.
“I knew that in order to make it to the Olympics, the more data the coaches have on you, the better,” O’Brien said. “And I also knew that the odds of me getting another race were very slim.”
Her path to this point has been anything but typical, but it’s a path marked by perseverance. She won three NCAA titles in the pentathlon and another in the heptathlon at Notre Dame before being recruited to the sport of bobsled by Meyers Taylor.
The 41-year-old Meyers Taylor, one of the most accomplished athletes in her sport, is also the most decorated Black athlete in Winter Olympic history. She entered these Olympics with three silver medals and two bronze medals, then added to her trove on Monday, and is hunting for yet another alongside O’Brien. They are considered medal contenders.
“Her being a Christian strengthens our bond and gives us a competitive edge over other pilot-brakeman combinations,” O’Brien told the National Catholic Register earlier this month. “Faith is our extra tool.”
Meyers Taylor came to faith during her time as a softball player at George Washington University and was baptized in 2013 alongside her husband, Nic.
“God put me here for a specific reason, and I don’t think it’s just to win medals,” Meyers Taylor said in a 2014 interview with Athletes in Action. “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.”
O’Brien shares Meyers Taylor’s sentiments.
“By having that mindset and having that as my focus honestly alleviates a lot of the pressure that comes with competing at a very high level,” she said during a Notre Dame Women For Good event. “The reason I’m competing no longer becomes for my glory, but it becomes for Someone bigger.”
Long before she reached the Olympic stage, O’Brien faced a serious health challenge. As an infant, she contracted strep throat, but the infection lingered and eventually developed into Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal Infections (PANDAS), impacting multiple organs and severely affecting her mental and emotional health.
“I went from being a happy, light, silly little girl to a shadow of a human,” she said in a Notre Dame documentary titled “Offering It Up.” “I was not there.”
For a period of time, she battled fear and intrusive thoughts, unsure what her future would hold.
“There was a time when she didn’t think she’d even be alive to go to college,” her mother, Leslie, said in the documentary.
Over time, O’Brien’s health improved, so much so that she became one of the top collegiate multi-event track and field athletes in the country.
“I have learned to never underestimate myself again,” she said as the camera panned to her NCAA trophies and medals. “Each of these tells a story. It’s a story of grit. It’s a story of overcoming the odds.”
That same approach showed up this bobsledding season, when she was recruited to the sport by Meyers Taylor. As a brakewoman in a deep field, O’Brien was only guaranteed one race, in Latvia in December.
“If I didn’t perform well at that one race, I would have no more race opportunities,” she told Notre Dame Magazine. “So whatever chance you get, you kind of have to take it and prove yourself.”
She did just that, teaming with Meyers Taylor for a fourth-place finish in an 18-team field. The result earned them another opportunity — the one that nearly ended in disaster.
Instead, it became part of their story of God’s sustaining grace. Together, they have reached the Olympics, and a medal is staring them in the face. Both Meyers Taylor and O’Brien are staring back with the eyes of faith.
“If you think too far ahead in the future, it’s easy to get distracted,” O’Brien told the National Catholic Register. “Handing all those worries and anxieties over to God and tackling one thing at a time helps you accomplish incredible things.”
U.S. biathlete Paul Schommer at the 2026 Winter Olympics, Feb. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
For U.S. biathlete Paul Schommer, the targets he faces on an Olympic course have always pointed to something deeper. In a sport defined by precision under pressure — where winds shift, weather changes and fatigue can disrupt even the steadiest hand — Schommer sees in it a reflection of his Lord.
“There’s this redemption aspect of it that’s really cool, because your past shooting doesn’t have to define your next shooting,” Schommer told the Baptist Press earlier this month. “It’s hard. It humiliates you. Just when you think you got it figured out, you don’t. But there are always new opportunities that await you if you just keep moving forward.”
That mindset carried him onto one of the world’s biggest stages at the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics in Italy, where he competed in four biathlon events. He didn’t threaten for a medal (but finished as the second American) in each of his three individual races. However, he helped the U.S. relay team place fifth — the best Olympic result ever for an American biathlon relay team. Before this year, the Americans’ best relay finish was sixth place, achieved three times (twice by men, once by women).
But for Schommer, life is more than his biathlon successes or failures.
“You have to be able to focus and perform in the midst of all that chaos to still hit the target,” he told the Baptist Press. “Life doesn’t stop for you.”
Schommer’s understanding of identity — separate from results — was shaped long before he became an Olympian. He grew up attending church, but it wasn’t until his teenage years that everything started to click. Through his involvement with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA), he began to recognize what the grace of Jesus meant for himself.
“I really started to understand that God actually likes me,” Schommer told the Baptist Press. “He actually wants to speak to me. He wants to move in my life in a way that goes beyond understanding or comprehension at times.”
That truth met him in the middle of one of the most difficult seasons of his life. During his high school years in Wisconsin, he battled an eating disorder, which he said brought “a ton of shame and guilt” into his life.
“I thought I wasn’t good enough, and as a result of that, I really tried to hide what I was going through from other people,” he said in a video from the Rogers Behavioral Health Foundation. “But when I was going through that, I think I was also hiding aspects of what I was going through from myself.”
At the root of it was a desire for approval — a need he came to realize couldn’t be satisfied by performance or perception.
“Finding the confidence within myself, and learning how to love myself, has allowed me to be able to now show up every single day in biathlon, giving my full self — knowing that the results I achieve or do not achieve don’t affect my worth,” he said in the video. “It’s me as a person that matters.”
Schommer still competes with an intensity befitting of a two-time Olympian; like any elite athlete, he wants to perform at his best. But, God has shifted his perspective.
“What’s the heart of God like?” he asked the Baptist Press as a rhetorical question. “Does His heart change based off the result? Is He surprised by the result? Or is He an all-knowing, all-loving God who understands the mistakes that we’re going to make before we make them? Does He allow us to go through some of these things to shape and mold us?”
That foundation of faith in Jesus has been consistent throughout his career.
“My identity doesn’t come from my results, and it doesn’t come from affirmation of others,” Schommer told FCA in 2018, “but it comes through my identity in Christ because He’s the One who gives me my meaning.”
Schommer has proclaimed that message publicly as well, describing himself as “Redeemed by Jesus” on Instagram.
In a February 2025 post, Schommer reflected on the uncertainty of pursuing his goal of qualifying for the world championships in Lenzerheide, Switzerland, and the perseverance it required to keep going.
“There were times I wanted to rip it down and tear it up into pieces because the reality of failure seemed imminent,” he wrote in his caption about a piece of paper stating that goal. “But I knew giving up would mean guaranteed failure, so I pressed on putting one foot in front of the other even when I didn’t see a path to the end goal.”
Referencing Romans 5:3-4, he described how trials produce perseverance, character, and finally, hope — a lesson that has played out both on and off the course.
“Without hope I may have given up,” he wrote, “but I am learning that our path may not be as direct as we want, but it will get us to our destination, and that journey #StartsNOW.”
Like many professional athletes, Schommer has had to be intentional about investing in his faith in the midst of a demanding schedule. He reads the Bible and prays regularly with a teammate, though he misses being part of a consistent church community.
“It’s just not a true replacement for what I feel like we’re really called to do: to live in community, to be there for one another when times are tough and the times are good, to celebrate with each other and to share meals and to challenge each other and just walk through life together,” he told the Baptist Press.
That’s something he’s looking forward to changing.
Schommer has completed all his events at this year’s Games, and he’s announced that this Olympic season marks the end of his competitive biathlon career. With the extra time, he plans to invest more deeply in his local church.
Spencer Howe of the U.S. competes with his partner, Emily Chan, at the Winter Olympics, Feb. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
Each iteration of the Olympics brings with it a number of human-interest stories that captivate the heart of a nation, and at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy, the story of 29-year-old American figure skater Spencer Akira Howe is certainly one of them.
On Monday, the California native and his partner, Emily Chan, skated to a seventh-place finish under the brightest lights in figure skating. They were ninth after the pairs short program, but moved up two spots after an impressive free skate to finish as the top American pair. The first-time Olympians will be heading home without a medal but with a season’s-best total score, 200.31, and the realization of a lifelong dream.
“We worked so hard to get to this stage,” Howe said Monday after the free skate, via U.S. Figure Skating. “And once you make it, your brain doesn’t know how to process that. It’s hard to explain. We just felt grateful to be here and to be able to skate as well as we did. It’s a huge blessing for us.”
Chan revealed following the pair’s free skate performance how their pre-skate routine helps them to endure the unique pressures of the Olympic spotlight.
“We like to feel grounded before we skate,” she said, via GoldenSkate.com. “Spencer kind of leads that ritual that we both do. We also usually say a prayer before we go out.”
The pair first began skating together in 2019 and enjoyed early success, but both suffered injuries and their training was derailed. Howe required surgery in May 2023 to heal a nagging torn labrum in his right shoulder, and a year later, Chan sustained a severe concussion that kept them out of further competition. Then, in October 2024, Howe enlisted in the United States Army and became the first figure skater in the U.S. Army World Class Athlete Program (WCAP). He heard about WCAP during his surgery recovery, a program that allows him to continue to represent his country on the ice while also training to defend it.
Howe’s faith has guided him throughout his winding road to the Olympics.
“If people know our story and they don’t believe in God, they should believe in God after this,” he said upon making the Olympic team. “Because we just felt like this whole competition for us has been one big miracle.”
After his skating days, Howe said he wants to become an Army chaplain so that he too can point fellow soldiers to the One who brings peace to troubled souls. He is currently working on his undergrad course work with the goal of getting a master of divinity degree after that.
“If all goes according to plan,” he told U.S. Figure Skating earlier this month, “as I retire from competitive figure skating, I will simultaneously be transitioning into the Chaplain Corps.”
“It’s definitely a unique situation: I’m a soldier in the U.S. Army competing,” he told Stars and Stripes earlier this month. “But in reality, I’m a person who’s trying to do God’s work and see how I can serve others.”
