Elana
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 was raised in Douglasville, Georgia. A gifted multi-sport athlete, she found her greatest success in softball and, by age nine, had declared her goal: she would become an Olympian.
Elana attended George Washington University on a softball scholarship and later played professionally. After falling short in her tryout for the U.S. Olympic Softball Team, her parents suggested she try bobsledding. In 2007, she traveled to Lake Placid, home of the U.S. National Bobsled Team, and never left.
Less than three years later, Elana won Olympic Bronze in Vancouver as a brakeman. She then made the bold transition to driver, earning Silver in Sochi in 2014. In 2015, she became the first woman to earn a spot on the U.S. National Team competing with men as a four-man bobsled pilot and the first woman to win a medal in international competition in a men’s event.
Elana won another Olympic Silver in 2018, finishing just 0.07 seconds from gold.
In 2020, Elana and her husband, fellow bobsled athlete Nic Taylor, welcomed their son Nico, who was born with Down syndrome and deaf. Elana returned to competition as a mother, winning Silver and Bronze at the 2022 Olympics and becoming the most decorated Black athlete in Olympic Winter Games history. Later that year, she welcomed their second son, Noah, who is also deaf.
Beyond competition, Elana has also served as President of the Women’s Sports Foundation, advocating for girls and women in sports.
At the 2026 Winter Olympics, after 19 years of pursuing gold, Elana won the monobob title by just 0.04 seconds. She is now a five-time Olympian, six-time Olympic medalist, Olympic Champion, and widely considered the greatest bobsled pilot in Olympic history.