After nearly retiring, Texas bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor wins Olympic gold at 41

Texas-based Olympian Elana Meyers Taylor delivered one of the most emotional moments of the Milan Cortina Winter Games — winning her first Olympic gold medal at age 41.

The New Braunfels resident edged Germany’s runner-up by just 0.04 seconds Monday to capture gold in women’s monobob, the one Olympic medal that had eluded her across five Games.

Meyers Taylor became the oldest woman to win an individual gold medal at the Winter Olympics and earned her sixth career Olympic medal — tying Bonnie Blair for the most medals by an American woman in Winter Games history. She also extended her own record as the most decorated Black woman in Winter Olympic history.

“Oh, I don’t think I’m going to process this for a while,” Meyers Taylor said to the Associated Press. “There were so many moments during this entire season, during this past four years, that we just thought it was impossible, or I thought it wasn’t possible. My team around me believed in me the entire time.”

And her historic success has only solidified her own faith in herself.

Meyers Taylor is a bobsledder, but she’s also mother to two boys, both of whom have disabilities. The 41-year-old was born in California, raised in Georgia, and now lives in New Braunfels with her family, including her husband, who works as a performance coach for the San Antonio Spurs.

Without the Spurs connection, Meyers may never have competed in the Milan Cortina Games.

In December, the bobsledder and mother of two was in Norway for a World Cup bobsled weekend when she texted her husband and told him she couldn’t go on. Her body ached, she wasn’t seeing the results she wanted in her races and she thought the time had come to pack it up.

When Meyers Taylor initially told her husband she didn’t intend to continue competing, word of her struggles made it back to one of the Spurs players. That player, who the couple declined to name in an interview with the Associated Press, gifted Nic Taylor a plane ticket to Norway and told him to go give his wife a pep talk.

He gave her the pep talk — and it did exactly what it needed to do. Meyers Taylor took it from there.

Meyers Taylor is one of two moms on the Team USA bobsled squad, alongside three-time gold medalist Kaillie Humphries.

Her two young sons have followed her across the globe to cheer her on, with Nico even joining her at the 2022 Beijing Games, where she won her fourth and fifth career medals.

Nico, 5, and Noah, 3, were both born prematurely and spent time in the neonatal ICU. Nico was diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome, and both boys are deaf.

Meyers Taylor said in an Instagram post that she hopes her pursuit of the gold medal in these Games will provide hope to families in similar situations, showing them there is a “light at the end of the tunnel” and that “their journey has just begun.”

Ahead of her final monobob runs on Monday, she spent much of the day teaching her boys signs for various terms, including “gold medal” and “Olympic champion,” just in case she made the impossible happen.

She later recalled that after she won the gold, both boys seemed to understand her achievement. Three-year-old Noah even put the medal around his own neck.

“He knew. He started signing, ‘Noah, champion,’” Meyers Taylor said to the Associated Press. “I didn’t get it on video because he wasn’t wearing pants, of course, because what toddler wants to wear pants?”

She’s still talking about retirement — but the difference between now and December? The race has already been won.