CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — Elana Meyers Taylor’s two young sons watched her leap into the air, throw her fists skyward, wave the American flag, then fall to her knees and start to cry.
In time, they’ll understand what they saw.
They saw history.
The 41-year-old U.S. bobsledder — a mother of two special-needs children, an athlete whose career was jeopardized by concussions, someone who dealt with plenty of doubt in recent years — is, finally, an Olympic champion. Meyers Taylor won the gold medal in monobob at the Milan Cortina Games on Monday night, her sixth career medal and first Olympic title.
“I thought it was impossible,” Meyers Taylor said.
She was never happier to be wrong.
She became the oldest American woman to hear “The Star-Spangled Banner” played in her honor at the Winter Games. Rallying in the fourth and final heat, Meyers Taylor prevailed with a four-run, two-day time of 3 minutes, 57.93 seconds.
Meyers Taylor had medaled five times before — three silver, two bronze. She was the most decorated Black athlete at a Winter Olympics even before this win, and her place in history got a whole lot more dazzling on a frosty night in the Italian mountains. And this medal, her sixth, tied Bonnie Blair for the most by a U.S. woman in the Winter Olympics.
“To have my name up there with Bonnie Blair, it doesn’t even make sense to me,” Meyers Taylor said.
Germany’s Laura Nolte — the leader after the first, second and third runs — was second and Kaillie Humphries Armbruster of the U.S. was third.
“I’m a bit sad because now at the moment it feels like I lost gold — and not that I won silver. In a few hours I think I can celebrate it, because it’s still a great result,” Nolte said. “Elana also deserves it. She’s a super kind human and she has won silver for many times now and the gold was missing.”
It was the fifth career medal for Humphries Armbruster. She’s 40 and about 18 months removed from becoming a mom — and she technically became the first woman 40 or older to clinch an Olympic bobsled medal, since she finished her competition exactly 2 minutes, 29 seconds before Meyers Taylor crossed the line to join the 40-something medal club.
“You get a lot of people that like to write you off as soon as you reach 40, it’s all downhill from there, is what you hear. I think Elana and I are both proof that that’s not true,” Humphries Armbruster said. “As soon as you become a mom, your body’s not the same, and you can never get that high performance back, and I think we were able to show that that’s not true again.”
Nolte led by 0.15 seconds going into the final run, with Meyers Taylor second and Humphries Armbruster third — 0.24 seconds off the lead. Barring big mistakes, gold, silver and bronze would be theirs in some order; nobody else was within 0.6 seconds of Humphries Armbruster, nor within about a full second of Nolte’s lead going into the final heat.
They go in reverse order in sliding. That meant Humphries Armbruster went first among the final three, then Meyers Taylor, then Nolte.
Humphries Armbruster finished in 3:58.05, knowing she was assured of her fifth career medal when she crossed the line. As the sled skidded to a stop, she was already on her feet — throwing her arms into the air, knowing at least bronze was coming her way.
U.S. coach Brian Shimer, often stoic, started punching the air in celebration. And then the scene was set for Meyers Taylor, who held on to no worse than the silver spot and wrapped herself in an American flag after hopping out of the sled.
Nolte had the lead going into the last run. She just couldn’t hold it.
Kaysha Love, the world monobob champion for the U.S. last year, had big trouble in her second and fourth runs and finished seventh with a final time of 3:59.27.
“Seeing Elana, that was iconic,” Love said.
Humphries Armbruster won the gold medal in the inaugural running of monobob at the 2022 Beijing Games, with Meyers Taylor winning silver.
This is the fifth time that Meyers Taylor and Humphries Armbruster have competed in the Olympics. Each has medaled in each of their previous four appearances; Humphries Armbruster was also on the Canadian Olympic team in 2006, but did not race in those Turin Games.
They’re now 5-for-5. And Meyers Taylor, finally, has the golden moment.
“I didn’t need it,” Meyers Taylor said. “But I wanted it.”
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