Cortina D’Ampezzo, Italy — Alana Meyers Taylor’s two young sons watched as she leapt into the air, pumped her fists skyward, waved an American flag, then fell to her knees and began to cry.
Over time, they will understand what they saw.
He saw history.
The 41-year-old American bobsledder – a mother of two, an athlete whose career was jeopardized by injury, who faced many doubts in recent years – is, after all, an Olympic champion. Meyers Taylor won gold in the monobob at the Milan Cortina Games on Monday night, his sixth career medal and first Olympic title.
“I thought it was impossible,” Meyers Taylor said.
She was never happy 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 won with four runs in a two-day time of 3 minutes, 57.93 seconds.
Meyers Taylor had won medals five times before – three silver, two bronze. Even before this win she was the most decorated black athlete at the Winter Olympics, and on a cold night in the Italian mountains her place in history became even more luminous. And the medal, her sixth, tied Bonnie Blair for the most medals won by an American woman at the Winter Olympics.
Meyers Taylor said, “It makes no sense to me to have my name included with Bonnie Blair.”
Germany’s Laura Nolte – leading after the first, second and third runs – finished second and America’s Kelly Humphries Armbruster finished third.
Nolte said, “I’m a bit sad because at the moment it feels like I’ve lost the gold medal – not that I’ve won the silver. In a few hours I think I can celebrate, because it’s still a great result.” “Alana deserves it too. She’s a very kind person and has won silver many times and was missing gold.”
It was the fifth medal of Humphreys Armbruster’s career. She’s 40 and about 18 months away from becoming a mother — and she technically became the first woman 40 or older to win an Olympic bobsled medal, as she finished her event just 2 minutes, 29 seconds before Meyers Taylor crossed the line to join the 40-something medal club.
Humphries Armbruster said, “You get a lot of people who want to write you off as soon as you reach 40, it’s all downhill from there. I think both Elana and I are proof that that’s not true.” “As soon as you become a mom, your body is never 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 took a lead of 0.15 seconds into the final race, with Meyers Taylor in second and Humphreys Armbruster in third – a lead of 0.24 seconds. Barring major mistakes, the gold, silver and bronze will be theirs in some order; Neither Humphreys was within 0.6 seconds of Armbruster, nor within a full second of Nolte’s lead in the final heat.
They move in reverse order in sliding. This means Humphreys Armbruster finished first in the final three, then Meyers Taylor, then Nolte.
Humphries Armbruster finished in 3:58.05, knowing she was certain to get the fifth medal of her career when she crossed the line. As the sled skidded to a stop, she was already on her feet – throwing her arms in the air, knowing that at least Bronze was headed her way.
The often stoic American coach Brian Schirmer began punching the air in celebration. And then the scene was set for Meyers Taylor, who did no worse than Silver Spot and wrapped himself in the American flag after exiting the sled.
Nolte had the lead until the last run. She couldn’t stop it.
Kaysha Love, last year’s world monobob champion for the United States, had major trouble on her second and fourth runs and finished seventh with a final time of 3:59.27.
“To see Elana, that was iconic,” Love said.
Humphreys Armbruster won the gold medal in the inaugural monobore race at the 2022 Beijing Games, while Meyers Taylor won the silver medal.
This is the fifth time that Meyers Taylor and Humphreys Armbruster have competed in the Olympics. Each has won a medal in their last four appearances; Humphreys Armbruster was also 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 his golden moment.
“I didn’t need it,” Meyers Taylor said. “But I wanted it.”
