Elana Meyers Taylor’s victory in her fifth Olympics was about far more than gold | Winter Olympics 2026

ELana Meyers Taylor had already cemented her place in Olympic history long before Monday night. She had competed with and against men on the World Cup tour and at the world championships to help put women’s monobob on the Winter Olympic program. She had surpassed speed skater Shani Davis as the most decorated black athlete in Winter Games history. She has accumulated more Olympic medals than any other women’s bobsledder ever, reaching the podium in Vancouver, Sochi, Pyeongchang and Beijing.

But even at 41, with back pain and a history of concussions, even with the added responsibility and time pressures of motherhood, even after five visits to an Olympic podium that would have been enough for another athlete to put an end to, she had never given up on her dream of standing on the top step alone.

That goal was achieved Monday evening in the quiet residential neighborhood of Località Gilardon where she finally won gold in the monobob by 0.04 seconds over Germany’s Laura Nolte in the closest women’s bobsleigh finish in Olympic history. Meyers Taylor’s first gold medal came in his fifth Games – after three silvers and two bronzes in the previous four – and eclipsed Benjamin Karl’s record as the oldest Winter Olympic gold medalist in an individual event.

“The only thing missing from my resume at this point is an Olympic gold medal,” she told NBC last year. “I’ve done everything else. I’ve accomplished a lot in this sport. But to have the opportunity, one last time, to pursue it, you can’t pass that up.”

Meyers Taylor was determined to make the most of her athletic gifts, not content with the Olympic near misses, World Cup victories (21), world championship medals (10) and overall world titles (two or eight years apart) on her record. But the build-up to Monday’s cathartic gold was the most difficult time of all. She hasn’t reached the podium once during the World Cup season leading up to her fifth Olympics, due to injuries, chronic pain, self-doubt, a horrific accident last month in St. Moritz and the logistics of raising two young sons who travel the mostly European circuit with her and a nanny: Nico, five, who is deaf and has Down syndrome, and Noah, three, who is also deaf.

“I don’t think I’ll get it for a while,” she said of her gold medal. “There have been so many moments throughout this season, over these last four years, that we thought it was impossible – or I thought it was impossible.”

The hardest part of this Olympic cycle, she said, was rarely the slide itself, but rather the daily balance of raising her sons while maintaining an elite career. This reality was only made possible by an unusually convenient support network that stretched from coaching staff to federation officials to family, including her husband, former American bobsledder Nic Taylor, who works full time back home and sometimes goes six months at a time without seeing his boys.

“The hardest mental battle is just living day to day with my kids and trying to figure out how to make it all work,” she said. “It took so many people to get me to the starting line. And that was the most important thing: I knew that if we could get to the starting line, that if we could get to that point, we could do good things.”

For anyone with even a passing connection to the Olympic movement in the United States, there wasn’t a dry eye when Nolte’s closing run fell just a few hundredths short and Meyers Taylor raised her fists to the sky, wrapped herself in the American flag and dropped to her knees in tears with Nico and Noah at her side.

“I can’t even explain what they saw,” she said. “We reviewed all the signs before, we reviewed bobsleigh, bobsleigh race, champion. They know all the signs, they have been well briefed beforehand. But I didn’t even think we’d actually use them.

“I hope they remember it visually, and I hope they’re able to take it all in, that visual memory, because obviously they couldn’t hear everything that was going on. One day, when they’re a little bit older, they’ll see it and they’ll know their mother was an Olympic champion.”

Meyers Taylor won the gold medal by being the most complete and consistent slider over all four races. While her closest rivals posted faster split times or higher top speeds, Meyers Taylor carefully avoided mistakes. In a four-round race decided by infinitesimal margins, this stability and composure ultimately secured his long-sought prize.

“I just focused on what I needed to do, the points I needed to achieve,” she said. “I had walked around the track again with my coach this morning, and he told me what I needed to do. We talked about it and just went to work. I was very grateful to be able to put the pieces together and finally have a race that I could come away very proud of.”

Its gold also resonates well beyond the sliding tracks. Meyers Taylor has become a visible figure for families raising children with disabilities, particularly within the Deaf and Down syndrome communities.

“I had really good people by my side who believed in me,” she said. “And people from all over the world contacted me and told me their stories, and how they had children with Down syndrome, and they had children who were deaf, and how they believed in me too. They encouraged me and told me that it doesn’t matter if I win, I’ve done so much for the communities. I’m so excited to represent them. I’m so excited to represent my country. I’m so excited to finally have a gold medal. It’s taken quite a long time.”

His performance over nearly two decades was surpassed only by his perseverance, but his compassion, clarity of purpose and quiet moral authority extend far beyond self-interest. She interned at the International Olympic Committee in Switzerland, served as president of the Women’s Sports Foundation, championed gender equality, and spoke forcefully about racial discrimination in her sport. Looking at her long enough in an interview or at a press conference, it is easy to imagine a future IOC president.

The Olympic title, ultimately, was never the only goal. Meyers Taylor is keenly aware of what her career means beyond the results: for families raising deaf children, for parents facing disabilities, for athletes trying to build a fulfilling life while pursuing their dreams. And on Monday evening, at three minutes to 10 p.m., in the heart of the jagged limestone peaks of the Dolomites, on the edge of Cortina d’Ampezzo, Meyers Taylor’s wildest dream finally came true.

“I don’t think I needed it. I wanted it,” she said. “And that’s what kept me going. If I needed to, I don’t think I could have done it.”