Team USA’s Elana Meyers Taylor and Kaillie Humphries Armbruster, two veteran athletes, battled for gold in the women’s monobob race. Here’s how they did.
MILAN, Metropolitan City of Milan — Team USA’s Elana Meyers Taylor won her first Olympic gold during the women’s monobob on Monday at the Milan Cortina Games.
After setting a track record in her third run, Meyers Taylor swept the competition and finished with a 3:57.93 total time, earning her a long-awaited gold medal. At 41, she made history as the oldest American woman to win gold at the Winter Games.
Meyers Taylor had medaled five times before — three silver, two bronze. She was the most decorated Black athlete ever 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, ties Bonnie Blair for the most by a U.S. woman in the Winter Olympics.
But gold made the moment all the more sweet.
Alongside the five-time medalist, Team USA was represented by four-time medalist — three of them golds — Kaillie Humphries Armbruster and Kaysha Love.
Humphries Armbruster had a splendid run, finishing with a total time of 3:58.05 and earning a bronze medal.
Love finished with a total time of 3:59.27, edging her out of the podium for the event. This was her second Olympics.
The difference between gold and silver came down to four hundredths of a second. Laura Nolte of Germany had a good start but skidded, falling just 0.04 seconds short of Meyers Taylor’s time.
Nolte took home silver.
Going in to Monday’s competition, Nolte of Germany was the leader after Sunday’s first two runs, finishing in 1 minute, 59.12 seconds. And right on her heels — a pair of American 40-something mothers, Meyers Taylor and Kaillie Humphries Armbruster, chasing even more Olympic medals for their collections.
Nolte’s lead was 0.22 seconds over Meyers Taylor and 0.31 seconds over Humphries Armbruster going into Monday night’s final two runs of the competition.
After the first three, there was a bit of a gap to the rest of the medal-chasing pack: Switzerland’s Melanie Hasler is fourth, 0.78 seconds off Nolte’s lead, and Kaysha Love of the U.S. is fifth — 0.89 seconds back.
Nolte is the reigning World Cup overall monobob champion. Humphries Armbruster won monobob gold at Beijing when the sport debuted in the Olympic program four years ago. Meyers Taylor won the silver in that Olympic race. Hasler is a 10-time World Cup medalist, always seeming to be on the brink of a breakthrough. Love — who clearly wasn’t happy after experiencing a ton of trouble in her second heat, dropping one spot to fifth — won the world monobob title last year at Lake Placid.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.