Breakdown of the Olympic sliding competition
USAT’s Sam Cardona Norberg breaks down the differences between a luge skeleton and a bobsled in this fast-paced commentary on the Winter Olympics.
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CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — Elana Myers Taylor and Kylie Armbruster Humphries are once again Olympic medalists.
The bobsled queens placed first and third in the women’s monobob event held at the Cortina Sliding Center on Monday, February 16th.
It was the first gold medal in Meyers-Taylor’s legendary career and her sixth overall, tying her with Bonnie Blair for the most medals by an American woman in Winter Olympic history. Myers-Taylor also became the second black woman to win an individual gold medal at the Winter Olympics. She won her first Olympic medal (bronze) in Vancouver in 2010.
“I still can’t believe it. I still can’t even explain in words what it means to win this gold medal,” Meyers-Taylor said with a smile. “It’s still surreal, but it’s still everything, and it’s still nothing, because at the end of the day, in six days, you’re going to have a school drop-off in the middle of Texas.”
Armbruster Humphries has won five medals in five Olympics, including the monobob gold medal won by Team USA at the 2022 Beijing Winter Games. She also won gold medals in the women’s two-man bobsled at the Vancouver Games and the 2014 Sochi Games.
“Everything is different,” said Armbruster Humphries, whose son Alden was born in June 2024. “This one in particular ties in with my mother’s journey over the past year and a half.” “There were no guarantees, so I really went into this race just trying to be the best version of myself that I could be for myself and my son.”
Myers-Taylor and Armbruster-Humphries both set records on their third run, closing the gap on Germany’s Laura Nolte, who led each of the first three runs. Meyers-Taylor had a great final run, putting pressure on Nolte to get clean if he wants to win gold.
However, Nolte made a serious mistake early on and was unable to recover from that. Meyers-Taylor finished with a total time of 3:57.93 over four runs, 0.04 seconds ahead of Nolte (3:57.97). Armbruster Humphries (3:58.05) finished 0.12 seconds behind.
Fellow Team USA bobsledder Keisha Love finished seventh.
This is the second event of the 2026 Winter Olympics where Team USA has had multiple athletes on the podium. On Saturday, February 14th, Jaelyn Kauf and Liz Lemley won silver and bronze medals, respectively, in the women’s dual moguls.
Meyers-Taylor never finished outside the top three in six races in five Olympic Games, making her the most decorated woman in bobsled history. Four years ago, she won a silver medal in the women’s monobob event at the first Olympic Games in Beijing.
Her latest victory came in 2022, at the age of 41, just three years after giving birth to her second son, Noah. The two boys, including their eldest son Nico (born in 2020), watched the Myers-Taylor race from accessible seats at the Cortina Sliding Center.
“My sons are the reason I’m able to keep doing this. My sons are the reason I’m able to keep going,” Myers-Taylor said. “At the end of the day, it doesn’t mean anything, because I’m still just a mom to them. I got more sparkly things to hang around my neck, but at the end of the day, they just want to be held and cuddled, and that’s what happens.”
Armbruster-Humphries, 40, made his Olympic debut in 2010 and represented Canada in Vancouver, Sochi (2014) and PyeongChang (2018) before switching to Team USA in 2019. She became a US citizen in 2021, five years after immigrating to the US with her husband Travis Armbruster in 2016.
Humphries was diagnosed with stage IV endometriosis in 2021 and underwent IVF treatment to become a mother.
“As with how my birth turned out and the IVF process in general, there are no guarantees and there are no guarantees on medals,” Armbruster-Humphries said. “So I’m very proud to have him and be here. It’s like having my cake and eating it too.”
Myers-Taylor and Armbruster-Humphries will return to the track on Tuesday, February 17th for the first official two-woman training run. Myers-Taylor will be accompanied by pusher Jadyn O’Brien, while Armbruster-Humphries will be paired with Jasmine Jones. O’Brien and Jones are both Olympic newcomers.
The first two of the four heats will be on Friday, February 20th, and the third and final medal heat will be on Saturday, February 21st. All four heats are added together and the one with the shortest total time wins.
Contact USA TODAY Network sports reporter Peyton Titus at ptitus@gannett.com and follow her at X @petitus25.
