Awe-Inspiring Women at the 2022 Winter Olympics
The Olympics will always be awe-inspiring, a stunning showcase of what humans can achieve with intense dedication, passion, and talent. Olympic athletes are often not only an icon in their sport but also a spokesperson for causes that are close to their hearts, using their international platform to advocate as well as inspire. The 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo brought incredible feats accomplished in summer sports and the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing are expected to be just as exciting. Here are seven amazing female athletes who competed for Team USA in Beijing this past February.
Elana Meyers Taylor - Bobsled
The 2022 Winter Games will mark Meyers Taylor’s 4th Olympic Games. She currently holds three Olympic medals.
In 2015, she became the first woman to compete with men on the US National Team as a pilot on a four-man bobsled. She then became the first woman to win a medal in a men’s event.
Meyers Taylor is an advocate for women’s and racial equality in sports, penning a story in June 2020 for Team USA about racism that she has experienced in sports, particularly bobsledding. This led to an investigation by the International Bobsled and Skeleton Foundation.
She is the mother of an almost two-year-old son with special needs and has been balancing training for the Olympics with new motherhood, along with the pandemic, for the past two years.
Kaillie Humphries - Bobsled
The 2022 Winter Games will mark Humphries’ 4th Olympic Games. She currently holds three Olympic medals.
These will be her first Games for Team USA, having previously been an athlete for Canada. Humphries became an American citizen in December 2021.
She left Team Canada in 2019 after alleging verbal and mental abuse by the team bobsled coach, standing up for herself and refusing to accept poor treatment, even from a world-renowned coach in her sport
Chloe Kim - Snowboarding
The 2022 Winter Games will mark Kim’s 2nd Olympic Games. Though she qualified for the Sochi Olympics in 2014, she was not yet old enough to compete. She currently holds one Olympic medal.
Kim is the only athlete in X Games history to win three gold medals before age 16.
She has partnered with Protect Our Winters to promote climate advocacy.
Kim is a first-generation American, with both of her parents from Korea.
Erin Jackson - Long Track Speed Skating
The 2022 Winter Games will mark Jackson’s 2nd Olympic Games. She is currently the top-ranked woman in the 500 meter event.
Jackson was the first black woman to win a World Cup event in speed skating.
During the Olympic trials, Jackson slipped on the ice and did not originally qualify for the 500 meter event, in which she has a chance to win gold at the Games. Brittany Bowe, first place qualifier and a friend of Jackson, relinquished her spot in the event in order for Jackson to make the Olympic team
Hilary Knight - Hockey
The 2022 Winter Games will mark Knight’s 4th Olympic Games. She currently holds three Olympic medals.
In 2019, Knight helped found the Professional Women’s Hockey Player’s Association. She has been an outspoken advocate for one professional North American women’s hockey league.
She was a prominent voice in the fight for equal pay for the US National Women’s Team in 2017.
Knight has been a member of Team USA since 2006 and holds 11 World Championship medals.
Alysa Liu - Figure Skating
The 2022 Winter Games will be Liu’s first Olympic Games.
At 12 years old, Liu became the youngest skater in history to land a triple Axel in international competition, and at 13, became the youngest woman to win a US Championship.
In 2019, she became the first woman to land a quad and triple Axel in the same program.
Liu is a first-generation American. Her father immigrated to the US from China.
Winter Vinecki - Aerials Skiing
The 2022 Winter Games will be Vinecki’s first Olympic Games. Though she joined Team USA in 2016, she was unable to compete in the 2018 PyeongChang Games due to an injury that she suffered in 2017.
At nine years old, Vinecki started a nonprofit called Team Winter to raise money for prostate cancer research. Her father died from prostate cancer in 2009.
She is the youngest person to run a marathon on seven continents, claiming this world record at 14 years old.
Several of these women have, in interviews, cited the positive influence of Simone Biles and her decision in the 2020 Summer Games to step back from competition to properly manage and prioritize her mental health. Kaillie Humphries is another athlete who was forced to choose her mental health over her sport after experiencing verbal and psychological abuse from her coach. Naomi Osaka, a world-renowned tennis star, has also withdrawn from high-profile competitions in the past several years in order to preserve her mental health. The mental and physical demands of professional athletes, especially at the Olympic level, are extreme. The risk of injury as well as immense pressure by performing on a world stage contribute to a heightened risk of mental illness. The pressure that these incredible athletes face affects them in ways that people outside of that level of scrutiny and ability likely cannot comprehend. Just because their athletic abilities appear superhuman does not mean that they are exempt from personal struggles outside of, and sometimes because of, their sport.
The 2022 Winter Olympics was held in Beijing, China February 4-20, 2022. Team USA sent female athletes in Alpine Skiing, Biathlon, Bobsled, Cross-Country Skiing, Curling, Figure Skating, Freestyle Skiing, Hockey, Luge, Short Track, Snowboarding, and Speed Skating.