At 41, Elana Meyers Taylor says she's 'money under pressure' as she chases monobob gold
Elana Meyers Taylor holds second place following the first two women's monobob heats at the Milan Cortina Games, just 0. 22 seconds shy of the lead. The 41-year-old American, a fixture on the ice for more than a decade, is leaning on confidence and experience as she pursues an Olympic gold that has so far eluded her.
A storied career and a long pursuit of gold
Meyers Taylor has built a resume few in her sport can match. Over successive Games she has stood on Olympic podiums multiple times: bronze in 2010, silver in 2014 and 2018, and another pair of medals in 2022 when monobob made its Olympic debut. Despite becoming the most decorated female bobsledder and the most decorated Black athlete in Winter Olympic history, an Olympic gold medal has remained just out of reach.
She embraces the pressure. "My nickname for people who know me most is E‑Money, " she said from her room in Cortina. "I'm money under pressure. " That steely self-belief helps explain why a competitor in a speed-and-power sport can still be a medal threat at 41 — a rarity in elite sliding events.
Meyers Taylor's athletic journey began on a very different field: she was an All‑American pitcher and shortstop in college. A failed tryout for the Olympic softball team pushed her to try bobsledding, and the switch transformed her career. Now, family is a central motivator. Her two young sons, Nico, 5, who has Down syndrome and is deaf, and Noah, 3, who is also deaf, will be in the stands in Cortina. She has said she wants them to see that the limits others set can be overcome.
Monobob's razor-thin margins and a comeback storyline
The monobob format intensifies the spotlight on a single pilot: races are decided by hundredths of a second, and the opening push — the first 30 to 50 meters — is often decisive. Modern sleds are lightweight and built from carbon fiber, and athletes routinely reach speeds close to 90 mph and feel forces that can exceed 5g on technical tracks that can exceed 1. 5 kilometers in length. Regulations limit sled sizes and combined crew weights to keep competition close and emphasize driver skill over brute force.
Meyers Taylor's season into the Games has been far from smooth. She has gone without a World Cup victory so far this season, battled chronic back pain, and suffered a violent crash on a Swiss track last month she called "one of the most horrific crashes" of her career. Even so, she remains undeterred and is aiming high: she reiterated that she's still pursuing two Olympic gold medals at these Games.
With two heats remaining in the Olympic monobob event, Meyers Taylor's margin is slender. A deficit of 0. 22 seconds can be erased with a stronger start, cleaner lines through the trickiest curves, or small optimizations in sled setup and equipment. In a sport where teams agonize over shoe spikes, insoles, and minute aerodynamic gains, veteran experience — knowing when to push and when to protect the sled — can be the difference between gold and silver.
For Meyers Taylor, the calculus is simple: she has been here before and knows how to marshal focus under pressure. Whether she converts that confidence into an Olympic gold will play out over the remaining heats, with every fraction of a second carrying outsized consequence for both the medal table and her legacy.
