Three heats of monobob down in Cortina d'Ampezzo, and Elana Meyers Taylor was chasing. Germany's Laura Nolte led her by 0.15 seconds. The last heat runs in reverse order, so the leaders go last. Kaillie Humphries Armbruster, her U.S. teammate now, was the first of the top three down and stopped the clock at 3:58.05. Then Meyers Taylor: 3:57.93. Then Nolte, the last sled of the night, and she could not hold it. Meyers Taylor won by four hundredths of a second.
February 16, 2026. She was 41. She had won five Olympic medals at four Games, and none of them was gold. Two months earlier, sitting in Norway, she had texted her husband two words: "I'm done."
Noah, champion
Her sons, Nico and Noah, are both deaf. Before the final heats, she had taught them the signs for words like gold medal. After the race, Noah put the gold medal around his neck and signed: Noah, champion.
It was her sixth Olympic medal and her first gold. At 41 she became the oldest American woman to win gold at the Winter Games. Her six medals tied Bonnie Blair for the most by an American woman at the Winter Games.
Nolte, the woman she had just beaten, said Meyers Taylor deserved it. She had won silver so many times, Nolte said, and the gold was the one thing missing.
"I didn't need it. But I wanted it."
Elana Meyers Taylor, to reporters after winning the Olympic monobob, February 16, 2026
Five days later she was back in a two-woman sled with her rookie brakeman, Jadin O'Brien. A skid in their second heat dropped them from fifth to 12th. They finished tied for seventh.
"I'm done"
Now back up to December 2025. She was on the World Cup circuit in Norway, and nothing was working. Her body hurt. Her results were bad. She was wondering whether she was doing right by her two young sons. She texted Nic Taylor: "I'm done." She told him it was impossible and it was never going to work.
Nic is a former bobsledder himself. That winter he was working as a performance coach for the NBA's San Antonio Spurs. When a Spurs player heard what was going on, the player handed Nic a plane ticket and told him to go to Norway. He went. He talked her out of quitting.
The numbers were not on her side. That fall she had recruited a rookie push athlete, O'Brien, a 10-time All-American in pentathlon at Notre Dame. But the Olympic season went sideways, and going into the Games she was 10th in the World Cup monobob standings. Tenth. And she won the gold.
"My team around me believed in me the entire time."
Elana Meyers Taylor, to the Associated Press, February 17, 2026
The softball plan
Here is the thing most people do not know: bobsled was Plan B. She was born on October 10, 1984, in Oceanside, California, and grew up in Douglasville, Georgia. She started playing softball at 9 with one goal, the Olympics. Two years later she watched the U.S. women win softball gold at the 1996 Atlanta Games.
In 2003 she became the first softball recruit in George Washington University history. As a 17-year-old freshman captain, she pitched the program's first game, scored its first run and got its first win. She started its first 192 games over five seasons.
"GW had added the softball program because of Title IX."
Elana Meyers Taylor, to NCAA.org, December 2022
After school she played a year of pro softball and went for the 2008 U.S. Olympic team. She did not make it. Her parents suggested she try bobsled.
So close, twice
She started at the back of the sled. At the 2010 Vancouver Games she was the brakeman for pilot Erin Pac, and they won bronze in the two-woman. Then she moved up front to drive. She became the first woman to earn a spot on the U.S. national team as a four-man bobsled pilot, racing against men.
At the 2014 Sochi Games, with Lauryn Williams pushing, she led the two-woman going into the final heat. She lost the gold by 0.10 seconds. At the 2018 Pyeongchang Games, with Lauren Gibbs, she lost the two-woman gold again, this time by 0.07 seconds. Two Olympics, two silvers, and less than a fifth of a second between her and gold.
Nico
In early 2020 she and Nic had their first son, Nico. He was born with Down syndrome and is deaf in both ears, from a genetic mutation unrelated to the Down syndrome. He got cochlear implants and started working with the Atlanta Speech School.
In February 2022 she was named a flag bearer for Team USA at the Beijing Olympics. When she landed in China she tested positive for COVID-19. So did the family members traveling with her, including Nico, who was 2. She missed the opening ceremony and spent days in isolation, seeing her son only briefly.
"Yesterday was the first day I didn't bawl my eyes out, so being able to race is a victory in itself."
Elana Meyers Taylor, to AFP, after leaving COVID-19 isolation at the Beijing Olympics, February 2022
She raced anyway. She took silver in the monobob, behind Kaillie Humphries, and bronze in the two-woman. Her teammates picked her to carry the flag at the closing ceremony. That summer she became an international spokesperson for the Global Down Syndrome Foundation, focused on the gap in life expectancy between Black and white people with Down syndrome.
Her second son, Noah, was born in 2022. He is deaf too. She came back after his birth and finished on the podium six times across the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons, with her boys often on the road with her, track to track.
Out of the sled
In Cortina, with the gold around her neck, she said she did not know where she would find that feeling again once she left the sport. She and Nic had talked about a third child, and she had raised the idea of retiring.
Six months later, the news was not good. On August 12, 2026, she wrote on Instagram that she had been having recurring post-concussive symptoms since the Olympics and would sit out the 2026-27 season. She said she was starting intensive therapy. On September 2 she explained it: her autonomic nervous system was out of balance, and every day her body thought it was in fight-or-flight mode, no matter what she was doing.
She said she hoped to get back to off-ice training first. The World Cup season runs from late November to early February, and the world championships are in late February in Lillehammer, Norway, the same country where she almost quit.
"If all goes well I hope to be back in a sled before the end of the Winter season, but time will tell."
Elana Meyers Taylor, on Instagram, August 12, 2026
She lost gold by a tenth in Sochi and by seven hundredths in Pyeongchang. She won it by four hundredths in Cortina. The race she is in now is the one back to the sled.
GAMECHANGER™Reporting draws on the Associated Press, NBC Sports, AFP, theScore, WNDU, NCAA.org, 11Alive, NBC Olympics, the Global Down Syndrome Foundation and Wikipedia's documented record of her career.
Sources (11)
Associated Press via ClickOnDetroit: Meyers Taylor nearly lost hope; her team, her husband and the Spurs helped her to gold · Associated Press via WSLS: Gold for Elana Meyers Taylor, 41, in Olympic monobob · theScore: Meyers Taylor wins monobob gold · WNDU: Jadin O'Brien and Meyers Taylor tie for seventh in two-woman · NBC Sports: Meyers Taylor out for season with concussion symptoms · Yahoo Sports: Meyers Taylor to miss 2026-27 season · NCAA.org: How Title IX paved the way to an Olympic dream · AFP via George Herald: Just racing at Olympics is a victory for COVID-hit Meyers Taylor · 11Alive: Atlanta hearing school helps Olympian's son · Global Down Syndrome Foundation: Meyers Taylor joins as international spokesperson · NBC Olympics: Elana Meyers Taylor profile