All-weather wonders: The Olympians for all seasons

China Daily | Updated: 2022-02-10 09:21
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Montell Douglas races in bobsleigh. Montell Douglas competed on the athletics track at Summer Olympics as sprinters. REUTERS

Meet the adaptable athletes who switched from Summer to Winter Games

Competing at the Olympics represents the peak of an athlete's career. Remarkably, some adaptable athletes get the chance to compete at both the summer and winter editions of the Games.

As the first city to host the Summer and Winter Olympics, Beijing is currently witnessing a number of elite competitors cross those sporting boundaries-some even returning to the capital having taking part in the 2008 Games.

Montell Douglas (Britain, 36, bobsleigh; 100m, 4x100m relay)

Montell Douglas will never forget the special moment when she walked back into the Bird's Nest during the Beijing 2022 opening ceremony last Friday night.

"Felt so surreal to walk back into the stadium that I raced in my first Olympics 14 years ago," she wrote on Twitter.

Selected to compete in the two-woman bobsleigh at the Beijing Winter Olympics, the 36-year-old Douglas has become the first woman to represent Britain at both Summer and Winter Olympics.

"I'm over the moon to be representing women. There have been many male summer and winter Olympians, so I'm more thrilled about leaving a legacy like that behind than anything else," she said.

Bobsleigh brings her full circle. Douglas, the former British record holder over 100m with 11.05 seconds, represented Britain in both the 100m and the 4x100m relay at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

She also competed at two World Athletics Championships, the Commonwealth Games, as well as the European indoor and outdoor athletics championships.

Douglas joined British Bobsleigh in 2016, and produced a top-10 finish in her Bobsleigh World Cup debut in 2017. She traveled to the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics as a reserve athlete, but in Beijing she will actually compete for the first time at the Winter Games.

"You're never too old, it's never too late, you should always dream and dream big," she said.

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