Gracie Clapp-Taylor was a pole vault star in high school, good enough to compete in college at Florida International in Miami, where she’s still enrolled as a student. Until the Vancouver Olympics, she had never heard of skeleton. And now she’s got a national title on her resume. Clapp-Taylor, a 21-year-old from Jacksonville, Fla., won the women’s competition Saturday at the U.S. skeleton push championships. She’s admittedly a long shot to make the team headed to the Sochi Olympics in February — the Pyeongchang Games in 2018 are her more realistic goal — but if nothing else, the win on the start track in Lake Placid, N.Y., is a huge shot of momentum going into this season. more
