Elana Meyers Taylor Wins Gold: A Look At Her 2026 Winter Olympics Win

Stubborn. That is the trait that bobsled Olympian Elana Meyers Taylor attributes to her first gold medal

win at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Italy.

“If you’re stubborn and do something for twenty years, it will work out,” the Atlanta native told

11Alive in an interview at the Games recapping her placements at the monobob and two-woman bobsled

races at the Games.

“It definitely was stubbornness at times. It was definitely determination,” Meyers Taylor told CBS

News.

The win was not only personal for the five-time Olympian, but it was historic.

Meyers Taylor is the oldest gold medal winner in the Winter Olympic record. She won by 400th

of a second, which some believe to be the narrowest win in the sport.

At the two-woman bobsled event, Meyers Taylor and teammate Jadin O’Brien placed 7th.

For viewers, however, the heart-tugging moments in Meyers Taylor’s success at the Olympic

Bobsled competition was when she hugged her nanny immediately following her victory, and

signed “Mommy won” in American Sign Language to her deaf sons: Nico, 5, and Noah, 3.

The joyful, tear-filled cameo spurred a wave of reaction from fans and parents of children who

have Down Syndrome, a condition Nico was diagnosed with. They expressed how meaningful it was to watch her tell her kids in ASL that she won and detailed how they related to the subtle moment of Nico not wearing shoes, a trait some parents of kids with Down Syndrome navigate themselves, she said in the CBS interview.

Balancing motherhood and her athletic career, however, required a support system for Meyers

Taylor.

Nannies, her spouse, family members, and friends have encouraged her, supported her, and made the win possible.

Meyers Taylor married fellow bobsled Olympian Nic Taylor in 2014.

Following the birth of their children, Meyers Taylor began advocacy work for the disabled and deaf communities. Her areas of focus in her advocacy include accessibility, inclusion, and access to resources for families with kids belonging to either community.

She has worked with organizations such as the Global Down Syndrome Foundation and the Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities, according to press releases from the respective organizations.

In 2010, Meyers Taylor made her Olympic Games debut in Vancouver, where she won bronze, according to the Team USA website.

She would go on to compete in every Winter Olympic Games since then, which occur every four years. Each time, taking home at least one medal. At the 2022 Olympic Games in Beijing, she earned two medals: Silver for monobob and Bronze for the main event in her sport, according to Team USA. Here, she set the record for most medals by any black athlete in Winter Olympic history, a title she still holds.

In 2007, she began her competition journey as a bobsledder and made the Team USA national team as a rookie. Her athleticism and tether to the Olympic Games, however, started early. Before excelling as an athlete in college, she held the torch as a child in the 1996 Olympics.

Meyers Taylor’s bobsledding success transcends the quadrennial Games. She has won several monobob and multi-competitor bobsledding competitions at the IBSF World Cup, IBSF World Championships, Pan American Championships, and mixed-gender competitions in the off-season Olympic cameos. This gold medal win, however, leaves room for Meyers Taylor to defend her success through more competition and retiring her bobsled.

“Now that I actually have a gold medal, I don’t feel the need to go get it anymore,” Meyers Taylor told CBS News. “Now if I wanna keep going, it’s truly because I wanna keep going.”