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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 United States 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 from Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.
She was never happier to be wrong.
She became the oldest American woman to hear The Star-Spangled Banner played in her honour at the Winter Games. Rallying in the fourth and final heat, Meyers Taylor prevailed with a four-run, two-day time of three minutes 57.93 seconds.
Meyers Taylor had medalled five times previously — 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.
Nolte silver ‘still a great result’
Germany’s Laura Nolte, the leader after the first, second and third runs, was second (3:57.97) and Kaillie Humphries Armbruster (3:58.05) 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.”
Humphries Armbruster, the former Canadian Olympian, took gold in the inaugural event at Beijing 2022 when she became the first woman in Olympic history to win gold medals for two different countries. The four-time Olympic medallist won her first two gold with her native Canada before switching over to the U.S. following a harassment claim and dispute with the Canadian federation.
It was the fifth career medal for Humphries Armbruster. She’s 40 and about 18 months removed from becoming a mom. She technically became the first woman 40 or older to clinch an Olympic bobsled medal, since she finished her competition exactly two minutes 29 seconds before Meyers Taylor crossed the line to join the 40-something medal club.
This is the fifth time that Meyers Taylor and Humphries Armbruster have competed in the Olympics. Each has medalled in each of their previous four appearances; Humphries Armbruster was on the Canadian team in 2006 but did not race in those Turin Games in Italy.
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.”
Melissa Lotholz placed sixth (3:59.24) and Cynthia Appiah 13th (4:01.13) for a rebuilding Canadian team using 2018 hand-me-down sleds from the big-spending Germans, whose deep pockets keep them on the cutting edge of bobsled engineering.
Canadians have medalled at each Games since ’06
Canadian bobsledders have won at least one medal in every Games since 2006, including two bronze in 2022. But heading into the Milano-Cortina Olympics, no Canadian team had finished higher than sixth in a World Cup event.
The lone podium result was Appiah’s monobob silver in Winterburg, Germany in early January.
Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton lost $1 million in funding before this season while team fees ballooned to $25,000 per athlete, CBC Sports contributor Morgan Campbell noted last week.
A revised set of goals from Canadian competitors heading into Milano Cortina, Campbell wrote, were more focused on process than results.
Canada 15th after 2 runs of 2-man bobsled
Earlier Monday, Germany occupied the top three spots in the opening two heats of two-man bobsleigh.
Johannes Lochner and Georg Fleischhauer led the way in one minute 49.90 seconds.
Canada’s top sled was 15th, piloted by Calgary’s Taylor Austin, with Shaq Murray-Lawrence of Scarborough, Ont., as brakeman. They clocked 1:52.25, 2.35 seconds behind the Germans.
Jay Dearborn of Yarker, in Eastern Ontario, and Ottawa’s Mike Evelyn were 22nd of 26 teams in 1:53.33.
Heats 3 and 4 are Tuesday at 1 p.m. ET and 3:05 p.m.
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