US Meyers Taylor gets Olympic gold at last in women's monobob
· Yahoo Sports
Elana Meyers Taylor of the United States finally claimed a long-awaited Olympic bobsleigh gold with a win in the women's monobob at the Milan/Cortina Winter Games on Monday.
The 41-year-old had previously won five Olympic medals - three silvers and two bronzes - and broke into tears, celebrating with her children, after the last competitor, Laura Nolte, couldn't beat her time.
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"It actually happened. It’s going to take a while for this to sink in. I still can’t believe it. I can’t even put into words what this means, I’m just so excited," she said.
"There were so many moments I thought it wasn’t possible, and I had some really good people in my corner who believed in me. And people from all over the world reaching out and telling me their stories, and how they had kids with Down syndrome, they had deaf kids, and how they believed in me, too," she added.
Her eldest son, Nico, was born with Down syndrome. He and his younger brother Noah have deafness due to a mutation unrelated to Down syndrome.
Meyers Taylor won with a combined time of 3 minutes 57.93 seconds from four runs.
Germany's Nolte had topped all the previous three heats, but she made too many mistakes at the top, losing precious time in the final run, and watching her 0.15 seconds lead vanish.
The World Cup winner had to settle for silver, 0.04 seconds behind Meyers Taylor, while bronze also went to the US with Kaillie Armsbruster Humphries.
"I'm a bit sad because at the moment it feels like I lost gold - and not that I won silver. In a few hours I think I can celebrate it, because it's still a great result," she said.
"If you lose speed at the upper part you can't catch it back on the down part. So I was angry, but I was still focusing on the next corners, because I was hoping that there's still a chance to somehow get closer, but it wasn't enough."
Humphries, meanwhile, stressed that she and Meyers Taylor are proof that mothers and older athletes can still compete at high level.
"You get a lot of people that like to write you off as soon as you reach 40, it's all downhill from there, is what you hear. I think Elana and I are both proof that that's not true," she said.
"As soon as you become a mom, your body's not the same, and you can never get that high performance back, and I think we were able to show that that's not true again.
"For every girl out there that wants that dream of being a high-performance athlete, to stand on an Olympic podium and be a mom at the same time, it can happen."