- Beijing, China is home to the 24th Olympic Winter Games.
About 200 athletes will represent the USA,
and behind each one of them
is a story of determination and grit.
(inspirational music)
Welcome to the "Humankind Connection: Olympic Edition",
I'm Zulekha Nathoo.
Jamie Anderson
is one of those people with an incredible story.
As a top snowboarder and one of eight kids,
she got her drive early in life.
One of the reasons, her mom,
who helped put Jamie on the road to Olympic success.
Gold medalist, Jamie Anderson,
didn't get to the Olympics highest mountaintop on her own.
- I feel like I have some really amazing support around me.
Number one, my family.
My mom has always been my main support and role model,
not just in snowboarding but in life.
Raising eight kids, cooking meals for 10 every day, all day,
that's insane.
But my mom has so much grit and she's such a warrior,
she found ways to make it work.
- My words may not stick,
you know the things that I said, or the things that I did,
or even the mistakes I made, but I was a good example
and that's, I think, the most important thing in life
is to be a good example.
- [Zulekha] Being in the middle of eight kids,
Jamie had to hold her own.
- [Lauren] Jamie was a scrapper
and she's got a lot of chutzpah.
- I was really sad but I'm over it.
I feel like I'm tapping into my warrior self
and I'm gonna go put it down, with blood on my bib.
- And she's very competitive
and she had her older sisters to compete with.
- [Zulekha] At age nine,
Jamie joined two of her older sisters on the mountain
and fell in love with the sport.
- Those three girls
were known as the Anderson Sisters up at Sierra,
and they grew up on the mountain.
They'd take the bus in the morning,
up to the mountain instead of to school
and they'd come home at four or five o'clock
and we'd have dinner and then they do their school.
That's how they grew up, on the mountain.
- I loved the freedom I felt of being on the mountain
and all the fresh air
and being able to go ride the park or go ride the trees,
or just go as fast as I could down the mountain.
- [Lauren] They went into competition right away
and they started winning right away.
And at first I thought
it's 'cause there wasn't any competition,
but there was competition.
And then they started going against the boys
and they started beating the boys.
I'm like, wow, they are really good.
- Those are all her trophies
from competing against all the boys.
There's no other girl except her.
- [Zulekha] And from there, Jamie's star continued to rise.
She's earned a reputation
as one of the world's best snowboarders.
With her family in the crowd,
Jamie had a life-defining moment at the Sochi Olympics.
(camera shutter clicking)
She fell on her first run, but had one more chance to win.
- I was like, I don't know if I can do this?
I have one more run, I could land and most likely win
or I could fall and just be so devastated.
And the part that humbles me
and makes me have so much appreciation
is right before I dropped in,
I sent a little prayer to the universe out to just help me.
Whatever's meant to be, help me just be in this moment
and do it for everyone who helped me be there
because I know we can't do it alone.
And as soon as I sent that little prayer out,
I just felt this energy come through my whole body,
to my heart, to the ground
and it almost dissipated all the fear and expectations.
And I just felt light dropped in,
everything went into slow-mo and, still to this day,
I think it's one of the most memorable moments of my life.
- [Lauren] Of all her wins, that one's etched in my mind,
it was the greatest.
- [Zulekha] With her family and the country behind her,
Jamie has her sights set on this year's winter games.
- I feel pretty freaking good.
I feel grounded. I feel content.
I think too much about it, I get a little bit nervous
but yeah, I think I'm gonna kick ass, honestly,
but you never know, a lot could happen from now to then,
so I try to just enjoy every moment.
- [Zulekha] With her kids now all grown,
Lauren is also focusing on enjoying every moment.
- And when I was a kid,
she always talked about wanting to go back
to Vermont, Vermont, Vermont.
And finally, when all of her kids were grown up,
she decided to pull the trigger and move back east.
She has a beautiful farm with a garden and a greenhouse
and alpacas, she's got a whole herd of alpacas.
- I sit out here with 'em, I'll sit right down on the ground
and just hang out with 'em.
This is California Fuego,
he was born during the wildfire in Lake Tahoe
so he's called California Fuego but I just call him Cal.
They're so peaceful and they're so sweet.
Winning teams? I think it's our attitude.
I think it's our go with the flow, listen to your heart.
She doesn't push herself to do a trick
until she feels ready in her heart
and she feels the green light and she listens to that.
And I think I really listen to that
and I think that it really helps with life,
it tells you how far you can go and when to go.
I always wait for direction and I think Jamie does too.
- I'm no superhero, but with hard work, passion, love,
I think we can do anything
and I think the only limit is our mind.
So, for any youngsters out there,
don't talk yourself out of anything.
The power is within us.
- And Jamie isn't the only Anderson sibling
to smash it on the slopes.
Her sister, Joanie, won gold in Snowboard Cross
at the 2007 X-Games.
US Olympian Jaelin Kauf
comes from a family of professional mogul skiers
but it's her brother's drive
that's rubbed off on her the most.
Terry Badu explains.
(upbeat saxophone music)
- [Terry] For Olympic mogul skier, Jaelin Kauf,
winter sports are a family affair.
- My parents were both professional mogul skiers
on the Pro Mogul Tour for many years.
It was just a sport that my brother and I
were brought up in.
- [Scott] Good job, Jaelin.(laughs)
- I fell in love with the mountains
and being on snow with my family,
I think that's what's carried us to where we are today
and where I am in the sport.
- Jaelin, along with her brother Sky,
they just grew up skiing.
I mean, it was never like a certain time
like, oh my gosh, she's really good.
They just always ripped around the mountain, right?
It was their first love.
- They're just out there having fun and skiing
and just playing.
- [Patti] Typical day with our family on the hill,
from the time Jaelin and Skyler were little, to now,
it hasn't changed.
It's the same thing.
We're up on the mountain when it opens,
everyone's like, (squeals) skiing around.
I mean, it hasn't honestly changed.
- [Terry] Jaelin didn't have
to look further than her brother Skyler
for inspiration and drive.
- He was always my biggest role model,
I wanted to do everything he did, go wherever he went.
Growing up in skiing, that's what I was doing
was just chasing him around the mountain,
trying to keep up with him.
- Still to this day, best friends
and that was how it was grown up.
From the time we were really little,
if I learned to do something, she was not far behind me,
probably a little closer than I would have liked
on a lot of fronts.
- But he's pushed her, get in the gym, you gotta do this.
I guess probably one of the highlights of my life
is watching him, watch her.
- [Terry] The sibling support paid off.
- Well, that's super nice of everyone
to give me any type of credit.
I would probably push back on that
and that Jaelin works her butt off.
She's a very talented skier and works really hard
and is super dedicated to her craft,
and those are the reasons
that she's headed to her second Olympics.
- It's pretty incredible to be able to represent my country
and ski for my country in the sport that I love most.
Knowing your whole country,
everyone at home is watching you, gathering behind you
and rooting for you to do your very best.
And it's just such an incredible family and team
to be a part of.
- Jaelin puts the team first. She's all about her teammates.
It's really important to her to be part of a winning team
and I think that comes from,
as a family it's not about putting yourself first,
it's about everyone.
- [Terry] With her family behind her
and her growing fan base,
Jaelin will feel the love from home
while competing in Beijing.
- The J-clan, right?
- The J's will be out.
- The J's will be out somewhere in force
and just be yelling loud. - Yeah.
- I keep making more J's
'cause we just keep pulling in more J fans.
- Through everything that we've gone through, as a family,
skiing has been our rock
and what's brought us all back together.
And I just think that it's such an amazing, incredible sport
that I'm so lucky for my whole family to share.
- When she's not on the mountain,
Jaelin is involved with the Women's Sports Foundation,
which advocates for women athletes
to reach their highest potential.
For bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor,
the Beijing games will be her fourth time at the Olympics.
But this one's different, she now has a young son named Nico
and the challenges he faces inspires her every day.
Terry Badu reports.
- [Terry] Elana Meyers Taylor's
unlikely path to the Olympics
started with a dream to be an Olympian.
- Being able to see the Olympic games in my hometown,
it was amazing
and it was something that I knew I wanted to represent,
our country.
- [Terry] But Elana had to hit failure
before finding her path.
- I actually grew up playing softball
and I wanted to go to the Olympics at any means necessary.
And then the dream of all dreams, I had an Olympic tryout
and then absolutely bombed the tryout.
It was the worst tryout in the history of tryouts,
so in order to be an Olympian, I needed to find a new sport.
And so my parents actually saw bobsled on TV
and said, hey, why don't you try this one?
- [Terry] Elana had to retrain her mind and body
to meet her goal.
- Every time you go down in a bobsled
there's some element of fear still to this day,
it's a very dangerous thing.
But at the end of the day,
I knew it was my next best shot at making an Olympic team
and that Olympic dream is so strong
that I was gonna do anything I could to chase it.
- [Terry] Elana introduced her now husband,
Olympian Nick Taylor, to the sport.
It wasn't long before the husband and wife
added to their team.
- This is part of my winning team too, this is Nico.
Say, hi, Nico.
- [Terry] Elana also added some Olympic hardware,
she's medalled in the last three Olympic games.
- I never really expected to be on the journey I'm on,
I can't say I expect it to be bobsledding this long.
Now my motivation is different. Now my motivation is Nico.
He was born with profound hearing loss and down-syndrome
and so for him to be out there
and show that not only can I, as a mother,
continue to be successful,
but he can be out of here traveling the world with us
and succeeding and reaching his milestones too,
I mean that's the coolest thing ever to me.
(inspiring music)
- [Zulekha] Elana is in her fifth year
as an athlete mentor for Classroom Champions,
an organization where Olympians and Paralympians
help students and teachers in underserved communities.
US Olympic aerialist, Winter Vinecki,
might seem fearless flying through the air
but it's been a long road to reaching her dream.
This is the story of how she found courage from tragedy.
This Olympic freestyle aerialist skier
is living up to her name, Winter Vinecki.
- It's kind of mind-boggling to me that there hasn't been
another Winter in the Winter Olympics yet,
but I think it's really neat.
- [Zulekha] While Winter Vinecki didn't get her start
flying through the air doing amazing things,
she was always a determined athlete.
- Basically by the age of five,
I had a really strong intuition
that I was gonna have my hands full with Winter and sports.
- Whoa, go dynamo. (crowd cheering)
First place.
- [Zulekha] And she didn't have to look far for inspiration.
- She literally saw me doing duathlons and triathlons
from a very young age.
We became the first mother daughter in the world
to run a marathon on every continent.
- [Zulekha] And at the finish line was Winters dad, Michael.
- My dad was a big kid at heart.
He always had the brightest smile on his face
and always loved just playing with us when we were younger,
he would build snow forts us, take us on snowmobiles.
It was really special to be able to have that time,
especially looking back
since we only had, for me, nine, 10 years with him.
- So, Michael was the epitome of health.
He was young and energetic and an incredible father.
So, at 40 when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer,
and a very aggressive form of prostate cancer
that had already spread to his liver,
it came as a complete shock.
Having to tell my kids that their dad had cancer
was probably the toughest thing I had to do.
- [Zulekha] Winter and her family
found strength and focus after her dad's passing.
- He sacrificed a lot of his dreams
to wait till we were a bit older.
He put off a lot of stuff that he wanted to do.
And so, looking back, he really just taught me
the importance of not waiting until tomorrow
to do what you're capable of doing today,
but also to have fun, be kind to others and enjoy the ride.
- [Zulekha] She started Team Winter,
a foundation that raises money for prostate cancer.
It was there she met an Olympic aerialist
who introduce her to the sport, and with her mom's support,
Winter moved away from home at 13 to train.
- My mom is definitely one of the strongest,
most fierce woman I've ever seen in my life.
She not only raised us four kids by herself
when our dad passed away,
but she really taught me to see it all, do it all,
be it all.
- I literally said, here we go.
I've always been super supportive of my kids
in chasing their dreams and their endeavors
and I'm always 100% in from the second my kids set a goal.
- [Zulekha] From that point on, Winter never looked back.
- A lot of aerial skiers do have a background in gymnastics
or some sort of acrobatics, trampoline, cheerleading,
but I didn't have any of that.
(water plashing) (man groaning)
- [Dawn] She had to learn the discipline of training
and a very rigid training schedule.
She had to learn how to fuel her body for success
and listen to what her body was telling her,
and the competitive drive that it gave her,
set her up for success to get to where she's at today.
Good job.
- There's definitely fear involved in this sport.
We are coming into the jump at 50, 55 kilometers per hour.
(crowd cheering)
But at the end of the day, it's about overcoming that fear
and finding ways to say,
okay, you know, I've done the training,
I know how to do this.
- Yes. (crowd cheering)
- [Zulekha] Winter credit's hard work
and her family's unwavering support for her success.
- There's no way I would ever be able to do it without them.
Here's marathon number two, amazing multi-marathon.
- [Dawn] Oh yes.
- Holy cow, you fit into this? - I know.
They're not only my biggest supporters
but they also just help me stay grounded
and feel like I have a place to come back to,
to be able to relax
after those hard, stressful months on the road
of competitions.
(engine revving)
Being part of Team USA is a dream come true,
it's the culmination of years and years of hard work
and sacrifices.
I'm just super excited to get over there and get jumping.
It's the biggest stage in the world
and I can't wait to be standing on top of that hill
with all the other amazing athletes
and to know that all my years of hard work have paid off.
- To date, Team Winter has raised
more than half a million dollars
for prostate cancer research and awareness.
And that's our show.
We wish the best of luck
to all our Olympians out there in Beijing.
Win or lose, we know they'll each come home
with a story to tell for life.
I'm Zulekha Nathoo,
we'll see you next time on the "Humankind Connection".
(smooth music)