Elana Meyers Taylor and Brittany Bowe 'tied forever' because of Beijing 2022 Flagbearer roles

Bobsleigh great Elana Meyers Taylor believes that she and speed skater Brittany Bowe now have a connection that cannot be broken.

It's all because of the American flag.

Meyers Taylor will carry the flag for Team USA in the Closing Ceremony of the Beijing 2022 on Sunday (20 February), as the final act in the Winter Games.

The 37-year-old was selected as the flagbearer for the Opening Ceremony at the start of the event, but was unable to attend due to testing positive for Covid after arriving in China, and gave Bowe the honour instead.

"It was really cool to make lemons out of lemonade," Meyers Taylor told Olympics.com in China.

"I had the really cool opportunity to hand that off to Brittany Bowe, who is an incredible person and just as much deserving to carry the flag as I was.

"As much as it was hard to not carry it myself, to see her carry it, and to have that moment to give that to her was really cool. And that's a moment that I don't know anybody else will ever get, hopefully nobody else, because hopefully we're not in the pandemic anymore. So that's pretty cool. And to have that now as part of my memories, you know, me and Brittany (Bowe) will be tied forever, we were friends before this. But now I think we're tied forever."

Meyers Taylor has been blogging her journey to Beijing for Olympics.com, sharing her experience of combining being an athlete with motherhood.

She become the oldest woman to claim a bobsleigh Olympic medal by winning monobob silver in Beijing, before claiming bronze in the two-woman bob on Saturday (19 February) alongside brakewoman Sylvia Hoffman.

Shortly after that Meyers Taylor was told that she had been chosen by her fellow Team USA athletes as Flagbearer for the Closing Ceremony.