At 40 and 41, These Moms Just Made Olympic History. Again.

Bobsledding looks fast and cool and vaguely terrifying, but I (respectfully) didn’t really give a shit about Olympic bobsledding until this past weekend, when I learned about these two 40-year-old moms who’ve basically made a career out of making Olympic bobsled history and were poised to make even more. 

Ahead of Monday’s women’s monobob, 41-year-old Elana Meyers Taylor already had five Olympic medals, three silver and two bronze, making her the most decorated Black athlete in Winter Olympic history.

On Monday night, Meyers Taylor FINALLY won gold, completing her Olympic collection, and tying speedskater Bonnie Blair for the most medals won by a U.S. woman in the Winter Olympics. “I thought it was impossible,” Meyers Taylor said after winning gold, per ESPN. She also became just the second woman ever in her 40s to compete in Olympic bobsled. The first? Fellow Team USA’er Kaillie Humphries Armbruster, 40, who raced just two minutes and 29 seconds before her.

Humphries Armbruster, whose three previous Olympic gold medals are the most of any female bobsledder ever, finished third, her fifth Olympic medal. I would simply never talk about anything else ever.

Elana Meyers Taylor didn’t know it yet, but her time would result in her first career Olympic gold! 👏 #WinterOlympics pic.twitter.com/Gzst7RxEF5

— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) February 16, 2026

“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,” Humphries Armbruster said after their win. “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.” 

I am starstruck, inspired, and irrationally convinced I, too, could maybe become an Olympic bobsledder. 

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