ORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy – Elana Meyers Taylor has won world cups, won world championships, was already the oldest woman to win an Olympic bobsled medal, recruited dozens of people to the sport and made two comebacks after becoming a mother.
There was only one thing missing.
Meyers Taylor, 41, has finally won an Olympic gold — her first, and one that made her the oldest American woman to ever hear “The Star-Spangled Banner” blared in her honor at the Winter Games. During the fourth and final heat, Meyers Taylor won the women’s monobob title at the Milan Cortina Games on Monday evening, falling to her knees in tears as the results became official. The winning time: 3 minutes, 57.93 seconds.
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Germany’s Laura Nolte came second and Kaillie Humphries Armbruster from the US came third.
Meyers Taylor had already won a medal five times: three silver, two bronze. Even before this victory, she was the most decorated black athlete ever at a Winter Olympics, and her place in history became all the more dazzling on a frosty night in the Italian mountains. And this medal, her sixth, tied Bonnie Blair for the most by an American woman at the Winter Olympics.
But gold made the moment all the sweeter.
Nolte led by 0.15 seconds entering the final run, with Meyers Taylor second and Humphries Armbruster third – 0.24 seconds off the lead. Barring major errors, gold, silver, and bronze would be theirs in some order; no one else was within six-tenths of a second of Humphries Armbruster, nor within about a full second of Nolte’s lead going into the final heat.
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When sliding they go in reverse order. That meant Humphries Armbruster finished first of the final three, followed by Meyers Taylor and then Nolte.
Humphries Armbruster finished in 3:58.05, knowing she was assured of her fifth career medal when she crossed the line. When the sled came to a stop, she was already on her feet and throwing her arms in the air, knowing that at least bronze was coming her way.
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U.S. coach Brian Shimer, often stoic, began punching the air in celebration. And then the scene was set for Meyers Taylor, who held on no worse than the silver patch and wrapped herself in an American flag after jumping from the sled.
Nolte was in the lead going into the final run. She just couldn’t hold it.
Kaysha Love, last year’s monobob world champion for the US, had big problems in her second and fourth runs, finishing seventh with a final time of 3:59.27.
Humphries Armbruster won the gold medal in the first edition of monobob at the 2022 Beijing Games, while Meyers Taylor won silver.
They became the first women over forty to do so in the history of women’s Olympic bobsled. Meyers Taylor – who was already the oldest woman to win a bobsleigh medal, having been 37 at the Beijing Games – is now 41, and Humphries Armbruster is 40.
This is the fifth time that Meyers Taylor and Humphries Armbruster have participated in the Olympic Games. Each of them has medaled in each of their previous four appearances; Humphries Armbruster was also part of the Canadian Olympic team in 2006, but did not compete in the Turin Games.
They are now 5-for-5. And Meyers Taylor finally has his golden moment.
