President Joe Biden and first woman Jill Biden hear as bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor speaks throughout an occasion with the Tokyo 2020 Summer season Olympic and Paralympic Video games, and Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Video games, on the South Garden of the White Home, Wednesday, Might 4, 2022, in Washington. Evan Vucci, Related Press
It’s been 20 years since Salt Lake Metropolis hosted the Olympics, however the 2002 Winter Video games are nonetheless seen as inspiring.
Simply ask President Joe Biden.
The president welcomed a whole bunch of Group USA athletes from the previous two Olympics and Paralympics, in Tokyo final summer time and in Beijing final winter, to the White Home on Wednesday for the first-ever ceremony celebrating each summer time and winter rivals.
Biden praised the “unbelievable character” of the athletes who competed throughout a pandemic that “made coaching and competing particularly troublesome and draining.” COVID-19 stored their households and mates from attending the 2020 Summer season Video games in Tokyo that have been delayed a yr in addition to the 2022 Winter Video games in Beijing.
“You simply don’t give up,” the president mentioned, a trait that helped carry the nation collectively throughout attempting instances.
“You helped us unite the nation,” he mentioned. “We’ve been a really divided nation philosophically of late, however you introduced us collectively. For regardless of the divisions, after we see you compete, we really feel a standard delight in these three letters: U-S-A. I imply that. There’s a standard delight. It crosses all political spectrums.”
Biden informed the story of how bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor, who received a bronze and a silver medal in Beijing and spoke on the ceremony on behalf of the athletes, had switched sports activities after taking part in faculty softball to change into probably the most adorned Black athlete in Winter Video games historical past.
“She got here shut to creating the Olympic softball group, however by no means gave up on her Olympic dream. Throughout the 2002 Winter Video games in Salt Lake, she watched the American bobsledder Vonetta Flowers change into the primary Black athlete to win a gold medal at a Winter Video games,” the president mentioned.
“That is what I imply by inspiration.”
Girls’s bobsled made its Olympic debut in Utah. In 2002, Fraser Bullock, now head of Utah’s bid for the 2030 or 2034 Winter Video games, officiated at a trackside ceremony marking the victory by Flowers and Jill Bakken, her teammate within the two-women bobsled race.
“We had two great firsts,” Bullock recalled on the primary anniversary of Utah”s Olympics. “Girls’s bobsled within the Olympics for the primary time; and Vonetta Flowers,” the primary African-American to win a gold medal in Winter Olympics historical past.