Mom, 41, Wins Olympic Gold After Nearly Quitting

Just before Christmas, American bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor was ready to quit. Her body ached, race results were terrible, and she worried about being away from her two young sons while training in Norway.

She texted her husband Nic: "This is just impossible. It's never going to work."

But Nic Taylor, a former bobsledder himself, wasn't ready to let her give up. A San Antonio Spurs player he coaches learned about the crisis and immediately bought him a plane ticket to Norway. Nic flew out to talk his wife through the doubts.

Two months later, Meyers Taylor stood on the Olympic podium with gold around her neck. At 41, she became the oldest woman ever to win an individual Winter Games gold medal in the monobob competition at the Milano Cortina Games.

"There were so many moments during this entire season that I thought it wasn't possible," Meyers Taylor said. "My team around me believed in me the entire time."

The victory was her sixth Olympic medal, tying Bonnie Blair for the most by any American woman in Winter Games history. It also extended her record as the most decorated Black woman in Winter Olympics competition.

The win was especially unlikely given her season performance. She ranked 10th in World Cup monobob standings and had an average finish of 10th place. Eight women won medals on the circuit this winter, and she wasn't among them.

Why This Inspires

What makes this story remarkable isn't just the comeback or the record. It's what happened after the medal ceremony.

Meyers Taylor had taught her two deaf sons, Nico and Noah, sign language for "gold medal" and "Olympic champion" the day before her final runs. She insisted she didn't think they'd actually need the words.

But three-year-old Noah knew exactly what happened. He put on his mom's gold medal and started signing "Noah, champion."

"I didn't get it on video because he wasn't wearing pants, of course," Meyers Taylor laughed. "What toddler wants to wear pants?"

Her teammate Jadin O'Brien, a rookie bobsledder who Meyers Taylor recruited last fall, called it "without a doubt, the coolest sports moment I've ever been part of." That means something coming from a three-time NCAA indoor track champion.

Now a sleep-deprived Olympic gold medalist, Meyers Taylor was back on the ice the next day, preparing for the two-woman race. Sometimes the difference between quitting and making history is just one person who believes in you enough to get on a plane.