Bobsleigh-Super-vet and rookie combine for US in search of gold

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy, Feb 17 : Medal-laden Elana Meyers Taylor is in her fifth Olympics while Jadin O'Brien had barely seen, let alone touched, a bobsleigh until late last year, but this week that unlikely U.S. pairing will be targeting gold in the Two-Woman event in Cortina.

Meyers Taylor, 41, arrived with two silver and two bronze medals from the Two-Woman event, starting in 2010.

She got another silver with the first running of Monobob four years ago and then, on Monday, finally topped the podium with a dramatic Monobob gold.

There is nothing she does not know about the sport.

The same cannot be said for O'Brien, who was competing at the USA Track & Field championships as a heptathlete last August with no thought of getting into a bobsleigh.

That was until Meyers Taylor, always on the lookout for the sort of powerful sprinters necessary for success, contacted her.

"It has been a whirlwind," O'Brien, 23, told journalists in Cortina ahead of her event that begins on Friday.

"I finished my last track meet August 2nd and started training for bobsled August 4th. Ten days after that, I was in Lake Placid doing the rookie camp, two weeks after, I made the World Cup team and now we are in Europe.

"I could never have predicted my life would turn out this way, but I'm incredibly grateful, and I've loved every second of it."

Not quite every second.

SPECTACULAR CRASH

A month ago she and Meyers Taylor were involved in a spectacular crash in St. Moritz, Switzerland that the veteran pilot described as one of the most violent she had ever seen.

"It was not easy getting back on the line to race in St. Moritz after that," O'Brien said. "I was in a lot of pain, I couldn't really move and we were both very, very beat up.

"But in a weird way I