(Photo Courtesy: Elena Meyers Taylor/Instagram @EleanaMeyersTaylor)
This year at the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Games in South Korea, Elana Meyers Taylor will be looking to gain her first Olympic gold medal.
Competing in her third Olympics, the Olympic bobsledder won the bronze as a brakeman in 2010, and then silver as a driver in 2014. This year, along with her teammate Lauren Gibbs, they are once again strong medal contenders in South Korea.
A six-time world championship medalist, Meyers Taylor says she’ll compete and do her best, but her motivation is not to simply win medals and achieve success, but to honor the One who created her.
“At the end of the day, I’m in this sport to glorify God,” she told Athletes in Action, “so if that means I come in last place or I win the gold medal, that’s what I’m going to do.”
“One of the big reasons I was put in bobsled is to help people not only reach their goals, but come to Christ,” Meyers says. “God put me here for a specific reason and I don’t think it’s just to win medals.”
Meyers Taylor is married to a fellow bobsledder and a member of the U.S. bobsled team, Nic Taylor.
The couple met at a Bible study in upstate New York in 2011. As they trained together near the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Lake Placid, N.Y., they became close friends, engaged and eventually married in 2014.
The Taylors also were baptized together in Saranac Lake by their pastor Ryan Schneider.
“Nic got baptized first,” Schneider said. “Then he helped me baptize Elana. It was really a powerful statement.”
“Being able to do it with your best friend — who happens to be your wife — is awesome,” Nic said to FCA. “It makes the road a lot easier. Things aren’t nearly as hard as they could be if I was on this path alone.”
Elana will compete in the Olympic women’s bobsled competition starting Tuesday, February 20.
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 Winter Olympics in Milan, 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, the U.S. relay team placed 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 the men, once by the 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. “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,” he told FCA in 2018, “but it comes through my identity in Christ because He’s the one who gives me my meaning.”
He’s 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.”
Latvia's Teodors Blugers (23) challenges with Denmark's Frederik Andersen (31) during the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Feb. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Darko Bandic, Pool)
For the first time since 2014, NHL players are allowed to compete at the Olympic Winter Games. And of the dozens of NHL players currently chasing gold as they represent their countries this year in Milan, Italy, some of them are also professing believers in Jesus Christ.
One such player is Latvia’s Teddy Blueger, a center for the Vancouver Canucks.
The 31-year-old (whose Latvian name is Teodors Blugers) has yet to record a point in Italy, as Latvia won one game and dropped two during pool play. But he’ll be leaned upon to keep Latvia from going home. Despite finishing fourth in Group C, Blueger and his teammates aren’t out of medal contention yet; all 12 teams will appear in the knockout stage.
“Everyone takes a lot of pride in playing for their national team,” Blueger told Canucks Insider in the lead-up to the Olympics. “It’s a huge deal at home (in Latvia), it’s a big honor, and we’re looking forward to going there and just competing.”
"Everyone takes a lot of pride in playing for their national team. It's a huge deal at home, it's a big honour, and we're looking forward to going there and just competing."
Teddy Blueger discusses his return to play, success on the penalty kill, and the 2026 Winter Olympics. pic.twitter.com/ESsSQiMilk
An even greater joy for Blueger than representing Latvia is representing Christ in Italy.
“It eventually just kind of felt right,” Blueger said on the Sports Spectrum Podcast in October 2023 about becoming a Christian. “I knew God was there and I could see Him working in my life.”
Blueger’s road to surrendering control of his life fully to God was years long. He grew up in Riga, Latvia, knowing next to nothing about Christianity, and it wasn’t until he came to the United States as a teenager that God began to change things.
God was at work through countless Bible studies, countless hockey chapels, and countless Sunday morning services in countless different cities to soften Blueger’s heart toward Him. But ultimately, it wasn’t until God used a relationship with a young lady Blueger met in high school in Minnesota, named Monique LaFontaine, that Blueger came to saving faith.
Because of LaFontaine’s gentle yet persistent urging, Blueger became a regular at church. And because of her character, Blueger became captivated with the character of God. His eyes began to open and he began to recognize God’s steadfast presence in each chapter of his life.
“She’s got Jesus just shining through her because of the type of person she is,” Blueger said on the podcast. “… You look back and you see God working in your life in all these ways.”
Blueger’s pro hockey career began when the Pittsburgh Penguins drafted him out of Minnesota State in 2016. Pittsburgh is where he played the first 4.5 years of his career. He loved the city. But everything was uprooted when, in March 2023, he was traded from the Penguins to the Las Vegas Golden Knights. Blueger’s initial anguish around being shipped to Las Vegas quickly turned to joy, however, when the Knights went on to win the 2022-23 Stanley Cup.
On the podcast, Blueger explained the difficulty of trusting God’s plan amid the uncertainty of the trade and the blessing it is to surrender all things to Him.
“Ultimately, even if I think I have all this control, I don’t,” he said. “… It’s been an awesome journey, and God’s done some amazing things in my life.”
Blueger, who recently spoke about unselfishness in a new seven-day devotional for the YouVersion Bible app, will seek to focus on the task in front of him during Latvia’s trek through the Olympics and once again trust in God for his NHL future.
Puck-drop for Latvia’s knockout-round matchup against Sweden on Tuesday will be at 3:10 p.m. ET.
Left to right: Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Steph Curry, Coco Gauff, Scottie Scheffler, Anna Hall. (AP Photos)
With 2024 coming to a close, Sports Spectrum is highlighting our most-viewed stories of the year.
It’s always fun to learn about new athletes — and sometimes even new sports — every four years when the Summer Olympics come around. There are many athletes who enter the Games already well known, but many more who do not. This past summer in Paris was no different.
For followers of Christ, it’s also exciting to learn about new athletes who share the same faith. For every Scottie Scheffler, the No. 1 golfer in the world who’s shared about his faith in Jesus on numerous occasions, there’s an Aaron Brooks, a four-time NCAA-champion wrestler making his Olympic debut while praising the Lord the whole way. For every Sydney McLaughlin, the world-record-breaking gold medalist who boldly expresses her faith often, there’s a Maggie Malone Hardin, a javelin thrower who’s kept her identity in Christ and not in her Olympic results.
“I would take my love for Christ and that relationship over a gold medal any day,” McLaughlin told Sports Spectrum this year.
Prior to the 2024 Olympics, Sports Spectrum took the time to compile a list of Christ-following U.S. Olympians — some well known, some not, but all professing faith in Christ. Nearly 600 U.S. athletes competed in Paris, so there was no way we could know the faith of all of them, nor list all who claim to be Christians, but we listed 20 to watch for in Paris.
It would appear that many folks watching the Olympics were curious about Christians competing in the Games, as our list received a steady flow of traffic through the duration of the Olympics. It ends the year ranked No. 4 among our most-viewed stories in 2024:
