Elana Meyers Taylor wins Olympic Gold in Monobob Classic
For years, Elana Meyers Taylor had come agonisingly close. Silver in Sochi. Silver in PyeongChang. Silver again in Beijing. At 2026 Winter Olympics, she finally climbed the highest step. Meyers Taylor captured gold in the women’s monobob in a finish that came down to four hundredths of a second. Her combined time of 3:57.93 held off Germany’s Laura Nolte, who crossed the line just 0.04 seconds behind at 3:57.97.
Teammate Kaillie Humphries completed the podium with bronze in 3:58.05, giving Team USA two medals in one of the Games’ most dramatic finishes. When Nolte’s final run turned from green to red on the timing board, Meyers Taylor dropped to her knees. After years of near misses, the moment had finally arrived.
“It actually happened,” she said afterward. “It’s going to take a while for this to sink in.”
A long-awaited breakthrough
Meyers Taylor entered Milan Cortina with one glaring gap in her résumé: gold. She had finished second in the inaugural Olympic monobob event at Beijing 2022 and twice taken silver in the two-woman bobsled (2014, 2018). This time, she flipped the script.
Trailing Nolte through three heats, Meyers Taylor delivered a flawless final run. Then came the wait. Nolte, dominant for much of the competition, skidded mid-course and saw her advantage vanish.
When the clock confirmed the 0.04-second deficit, Olympic history shifted. The victory ties Meyers Taylor with Bonnie Blair as the most decorated female Winter Olympian in Team USA history, each with six total medals.
Podium Power: Humphries adds another medal
Humphries, the defending monobob champion from Beijing, added a fifth Olympic medal to her collection. Standing beside Meyers Taylor in the leader’s box, she watched her longtime teammate seal the gold they once shared a podium for in 2022.
“The goal was just to push as hard as I could and drive as best I could,” Humphries said. “I’m really proud to be on the podium with these women.”
This race was about more than tenths of a second.
Meyers Taylor became the oldest American woman to win a Winter Olympic medal. A mother of three, she has spent over two decades competing at the highest level. Humphries, who gave birth in 2024, returned to claim another Olympic podium at nearly 40.
“You get a lot of people that like to write you off as soon as you reach 40,” Humphries said. “I think Elana and I are both proof that that’s not true.”
What it means for Team USA
This was Team USA’s first gold medal of the Milano Cortina Games in sliding events, and it delivered one of the defining moments of the competition so far.
Utah native Kaysha Love finished seventh in her Olympic monobob debut, rounding out a strong American showing. But the spotlight belonged to Meyers Taylor — the veteran who refused to let silver define her career.
After years of heartbreak, she finally leaves the Olympics as what she always chased: An Olympic gold medalist.
SportsLigue