By Olivia Devlin –
After being downgraded at the 2018 Olympics for Canadian bobsled and again in 2022, Melissa Lotholz has learned to take her disappointment to Jesus and come back to place 6th in the monobob in 2026.
“It was a roller coaster because you’re holding this tension of like I’ve achieved this childhood dream that I prayed when I was super young (about going to the Olympics),” Melissa said. “It was hard for sure. I had the choice to honor God and invite him into the space even though it didn’t turn out like I hoped.”
Melissa Lotholz was fast at track but didn’t think she had the stuff to compete at collegiate level. However, at her last meet, a college coach approached her and offered her a spot at the University of Alberta as a sprinter and hurdler.
Because of a friend, she transitioned to bobsled and performed well enough to rank up and get a shot at the Olympics. She was brakeman on the four-woman team but started developing some pain issues with her hips and she was downgraded from first sled to third in 2018.
That’s when she called her old Athletes in Action mentor, on the stairwell of the Olympic Village in South Korea, and talked things out, at the end of which she prayed: “Okay, God, like I want you in this. I want to honor you with what I’m doing. I want to invite you into this and submit myself to you.”
That conversation and prayer carried her through the Olympics. Afterwards, she still had to grapple with disappointment and grow. Why do bad things happen to good people?
By the time she had her second Olympic disappointment, she was more prepared emotionally, more trusting in God’s will.
Sources: 100HuntleyStreet, others.
So when it came time for the Milano Cortina Games this year, she nabbed 6th place, respectable but no medal.
“The one thing I’ve seen again and again even through my sports story is that God is a redeeming God,” Melissa says. “And if there’s anything we can stand on, it’s God is love and God is a redeemer.”
