It took her five Olympics, but she finally got there: USA’s Elana Meyers Taylor won gold in the monobob on Monday, capping a long and brilliant career.
The 41-year-old competed in her first Olympics at Vancouver 2010, and since then she has won three silver medals and two bronze across two events, the monobob and the two-woman bobsleigh. Her victory at the Milano Cortina Games came down to the final run of the competition with Laura Nolte competing to best Meyers Taylor’s time of 3min 57.93 sec. But the German could not respond and Meyers Taylor became America’s oldest-ever female Winter Olympic champion.
Nolte won silver and 40-year-old Kaillie Armbruster Humphries of the US, who was also competing in her fifth Olympics, claimed bronze.
“I thought it was impossible,” Meyers Taylor said.
Meyers Taylor was the most decorated Black athlete ever at a Winter Olympics even before this win and also is a four-time world champion. This Olympic medal, her sixth, tied speed skater Bonnie Blair for the most by a US woman in a Winter Games career.
“To have my name up there with Bonnie Blair, it doesn’t even make sense to me,” Meyers Taylor said.
Armbruster Humphries won gold in the inaugural running of monobob at the 2022 Beijing Games, with Meyers Taylor winning silver. Monday’s results means they became the first women in their 40s to win medals in women’s Olympic bobsled history. They also reached the podium in each of their previous four appearances at the Winter Games; Armbruster Humphries was on the Canadian Olympic team in 2006 but did not race in those Turin Games. They are now 5 for 5. And Meyers Taylor, finally, has her golden moment.
