CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — The only thing Elana Meyers Taylor has yet to do in her bobsled career is win Olympic gold, which made her process of choosing a strategy for the final two runs of the women’s monobob race at the Milan Cortina Games extremely easy.
“I’m chasing,” Meyers Taylor said.
Game on. The medal hunt in Cortina could be a wild one Monday night.
Laura Nolte of Germany is the leader after Sunday's first two runs of the women's monobob competition, finishing in 1 minute, 59.12 seconds. And right on her heels — a pair of American 40-something mothers in Meyers Taylor and Kaillie Humphries Armbruster, chasing even more Olympic medals for their collections.
Nolte's lead is 0.22 seconds over Meyers Taylor and 0.31 seconds over Humphries Armbruster going into Monday night's final two runs of the competition.
“It’s coming down to the wire," Humphries Armbruster said. "There's definitely lots of room to make mistakes on this track. Ice conditions are changing every single run. I've got to work real hard at the start. I’m trying to keep up with mid-20-year-olds and I’m still only year and a half postpartum, so there’s definitely still room for improvement.”
After the first three, there's a bit of a gap to the rest of the medal-chasing pack: Switzerland's Melanie Hasler is fourth, 0.78 seconds off Nolte's lead, and Kaysha Love of the U.S. is fifth — 0.89 seconds back.
It is a loaded leaderboard.
Nolte is the reigning World Cup overall monobob champion. Humphries Armbruster won monobob gold at Beijing when the sport debuted in the Olympic program four years ago. Meyers Taylor won the silver in that Olympic race. Hasler is a 10-time World Cup medalist, always seeming to be on the brink of a breakthrough. Love — who clearly wasn't happy after experiencing a ton of trouble in her second heat, dropping one spot to fifth — won the world monobob title last year at Lake Placid.
“Everything is still open. This is monobob," Hasler said. "It’s definitely going to be hard to stay in the fourth place, but I want to attack the medals for sure.”
Did Meyers Taylor expect it to be this close?
“No, no,” she said. “Actually, I thought it would be even closer. … It’s a very competitive field, the girls are all really great and it’s just one of those kinds of tracks where it’s anybody’s ball game.”
Australia's Bree Walker, a winner of five medals — three gold — in seven World Cup races this season, struggled in her first heat but rallied to be seventh going into Monday, one spot behind Lisa Buckwitz of Germany. But they're both about a full second behind Nolte, and well over a half-second behind the bronze-medal spot.
“Olympic Games are four heats and it’s a marathon," Walker said. "And you just have to keep going, keep going, keep going.”
Nolte had the fastest time in the first heat; Humphries Armbruster had the fastest time in the second heat.
“I wasn’t nervous at all," Nolte said.
That may not have been totally truthful.
“I mean, of course, a little bit nervous," she confessed. "I’m always a little bit nervous, or excited. But I can also trust my abilities.”
Her abilities aren't in question: Nolte won seven and medaled in 13 of the 14 women's World Cup races this season — and she's been even better in two-woman than she's been in monobob. But she came to Cortina with a goal of double gold, and after Day 1, she's in the best spot.
But to win Monday night, she'll only have to hold off the two best Olympic women's bobsledders ever: a five-time medalist in Meyers Taylor, and a four-time medalist — three of them golds — in Humphries Armbruster. They're the two oldest women's bobsledders in Olympic history, and still in position to find their way to the medal stand.
“Just put down four good runs and see what happens,” Meyers Taylor said. "It’s about putting down four runs and we’ll see, because I’m ready to go after it. I’m ready to get to it. Kaillie's driving well and Laura’s driving well, so I've got my hands full.”
___
AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
