CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — Elana Meyers Taylor has won World Cups, won world championships, already was the oldest woman to win an Olympic bobsled medal, recruited dozens of people to the sport and twice pulled off comebacks after becoming a mother.
There was only one thing missing.
Not anymore.
The 41-year-old Meyers Taylor finally has Olympic gold — her first, and one that made her the oldest American woman to ever hear «The Star-Spangled Banner» blare in her honor at the Winter Games. Rallying in the fourth and final heat, Meyers Taylor won the women’s monobob title at the Milan Cortina Games on Monday night, dropping to her knees in tears when the result became official. The winning time: 3 minutes, 57.93 seconds.
U.S. coach Brian Shimer, often stoic, starting 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.
Humphries Armbruster won the gold medal in the inaugural running of monobob at the 2022 Beijing Games, with Meyers Taylor winning silver.
They became the first 40-something women to do so in women’s Olympic bobsled history. Meyers Taylor — who already was the oldest woman to win a bobsled 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 competed in the Olympics. They each medaled in all 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.
