Olympic Gold Won With Help From Massachusetts Factory

When Olympic bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor needed different equipment days before her race in Italy, a Massachusetts factory worked through a snowstorm to make it happen.

Taylor and teammate Jasmine Jones visited Advance Manufacturing in Westfield on Tuesday to thank the workers who built the bobsleds that carried them to Olympic glory. Taylor won her first gold medal and sixth career Olympic medal in the women's mono-bob at the 2026 Milan Cortina Games, while Jones earned her first Olympic medal with a bronze in the two-woman event.

The visit came months after the Winter Games ended, but the gratitude was fresh. "Medals aren't won in isolation," Taylor told employees. "It really takes everybody and it really takes people coming in and doing the work that nobody sees."

That hidden work nearly didn't arrive in time. Just before her gold medal race, Taylor realized the Italian track was trickier than expected and requested different runners for her sled. "This track ended up being way trickier than anyone thought so I needed a runner that could get me down, not only fast, but also give me the control I was looking for," she explained.

The timing couldn't have been worse. A major snowstorm hit Massachusetts right when the equipment needed to ship overseas. But the Advance Manufacturing team pushed through and delivered the runners before race day.

Production manager Jeffrey Amanti explained the scope of their Olympic work. The factory manufactures almost every component of Team USA's bobsleds across all Olympic categories, including mono-bob, two-man, two-woman, and four-man events. "We make the two-man and two-woman sleds, so the entire sled, everything except the fiberglass shell," Amanti said.

The Ripple Effect

The partnership between elite athletes and local manufacturing shows how Olympic success reaches far beyond the podium. Taylor's gold medal victory made history as her sixth career Olympic medal, cementing her legacy as one of the sport's all-time greats.

As a thank you, the athletes presented the factory with a runner used during their Olympic practice rounds. The piece of equipment now stands as a symbol of what happens when world-class athletes meet world-class craftsmanship.

Taylor summed up the secret to Olympic success: having everything you need to compete at your best. "Going into the Olympics, we knew we had everything it took, we just needed to get to the starting line," she said.