Brown Cultural Events

Elana Meyers Taylor’s Olympic journey is a story of resilience, reinvention, historic achievement, and a relentless pursuit of gold, nearly two decades in the making.

The daughter of a professional football player, Elana Meyers was born in Oceanside, California, and raised in Douglasville, Georgia. A naturally gifted athlete, she excelled in multiple sports growing up but found her greatest success on the softball field. By the age of nine, she had already declared her goal: she would become an Olympian.

Elana attended George Washington University on a softball scholarship and later played professionally for the Mid-Michigan Ice. After what she jokingly calls “the worst tryout ever in the history of tryouts” for the U.S. Olympic Softball Team, it appeared that her Olympic dream might be over. But her parents saw bobsledding on television and suggested she give it a try, advice that would change the course of her life.

In the summer of 2007, Elana traveled to Lake Placid, NY, home of the U.S. National Bobsled Team. She never left.

Elana quickly established herself as one of the most powerful brakemen in the sport, and less than three years later she stood on the Olympic podium in Vancouver as a Bronze Medalist. After the 2010 Games, she made the bold decision to transition from brakeman to driver, taking hold of the sled’s “D-rings.” It proved to be another pivotal decision. She soon became a regular on World Cup podiums and returned to the Olympic stage in 2014 in Sochi, Russia, where she captured a Silver Medal, her first Olympic podium as a driver.

Later that year, she married fellow bobsled athlete Nic Taylor, becoming Elana Meyers Taylor.

In 2015, Elana made history by becoming the first woman to earn a spot on the U.S. National Team competing with the men as a four-man bobsled pilot. She went on to become the first woman ever to win a medal in international competition in a men’s event. That same year, she captured the World Championship title in the two-woman event, becoming the first American woman to do so.

At the 2018 Olympic Games in PyeongChang, Elana’s medal hopes seemed unlikely at best, as she entered the competition with a partially torn Achilles tendon. Nevertheless, she once again found herself in a dramatic battle for gold,trading the lead with Team Germany across four heats before finishing just 0.07 seconds shy of the top spot to win another Silver Medal. The Gold Medal had eluded her by the narrowest of margins.

On February 8, 2020, Elana and Nic welcomed their first child, Nico. Nico was born with Down syndrome and deaf and spent the first week of his life fighting to survive. The following winter, Nico began traveling the world with his parents as Elana returned to competition, chasing one more shot at gold, this time as a mother.

After a grueling buildup to the 2022 Olympic Games that included a last-minute positive COVID test just as the Olympics began, Elana once again rose to the occasion. She captured a Silver Medal in the inaugural women’s monobob event and a Bronze Medal in the two-woman competition. With those performances, she made history yet again, becoming the most decorated Black athlete in the history of the Olympic Winter Games, but again, the Gold Medal slipped away.

Later in 2022, Elana gave birth to her second son, Noah, who is also deaf. With her growing family traveling the world alongside her, she continued training for one more Olympic run.

At the 2026 Winter Olympic Games, Elana sat in second place after three of four tension-filled monobob runs. Nineteen years in the making, everything came down to one final run, and when she needed it most, she delivered, winning by a mere 0.04 seconds, capturing the long-awaited Gold Medal, and earning the coveted title of Olympic Champion. Seconds after winning, she signed to her two young boys who were trackside with their father, “Mommy Won!”

Elana Meyers Taylor is now a five-time Olympian, six-time Olympic medalist, and widely considered the greatest bobsled pilot in Olympic history.