When the time flashed on the screen, there was first an unbelieving fraction of a second before the scream came, because surely that hadn’t just happened.
Surely, the indomitable German 1 sled had not lost time on the final run.
Surely, it had not come second.
Why We Wrote This
From the ski slopes to the figure skating rink, women Olympians are making their mark in these Winter Games by competing – and succeeding – at ages well past what is considered the prime for elite athletes.
Surely, America’s Elana Meyers Taylor had not just won her first gold medal in five Olympics.
But then the results screen insisted, Yes, Elana, all that just happened.
Ms. Meyers Taylor’s first act as an Olympic champion was to cry and hug her two sons. Because that is who she is, and they are who she did it for.
Ms. Meyers Taylor’s achievements at 41 are remarkable. Perhaps even more remarkable is that she has been in good company at the 2026 Winter Olympics. From the ski slopes to the figure skating rink, 40-somethings have made their mark. But never more so than on this cold night in Cortina amid gently pirouetting snow squalls.
Standing two spots away on the podium for the one-woman monobob event, in bronze medal position, was American Kaillie Armbruster Humphries, also age 41, holding her 1-1/2-year-old son, Aulden. That made German Laura Nolte, who is in her 20s and not a mother, the anomaly.
During an October media summit, Lindsey Vonn, competing in her fifth Winter Olympics here at age 41, made a statement that felt like a challenge: “I want it to be normal for women to compete longer.”
The Milan Cortina Games – and Monday night, in particular – have been a giant step toward doing just that.
For many women, the path to sporting excellence later in their careers differs from that of men. All face varying degrees of expectation to settle down and have a family. And even for those who don’t, the skepticism around pursuing sports at an elite level for longer feels greater than it does for men, some say.
For those who do start a family, staying in sports is an Olympic feat in itself, both from the desire to keep their children close and the widespread sense that childcare remains primarily a mother’s job. The trials can be severe. But as Ms. Meyers Taylor and Ms. Armbruster Humphries found Monday, it can also be rewarding in ways they never imagined.
In sport, there’s this belief that, “if you have kids, once you get to 40, it’s all downhill, and Elana and I get to be proof that that’s not true,” said Ms. Armbruster Humphries after the race.
“That, you know, it might look different than when you’re 20,” she added with a grin. “But it doesn’t mean that you can’t stand on top of the podium. It doesn’t mean you can’t go out there and achieve your dreams.”
For Ms. Meyers Taylor, Monday’s gold was forged from her most difficult season.
“I thought doing this with one kid was crazy, doing it with two is just a glutton for punishment,” said the American with a smile at a pre-Olympics press conference. “Getting to the start line most weeks is a huge accomplishment. This has been the hardest team to make.”
This season has included one of the worst crashes of her career, as well as physical challenges. At the race to test Cortina’s new Olympic track earlier this season, she finished 19th. “This season has been miserable,” she said Monday.
But she has learned one thing. A gold medal, she said before the Olympics, would mean “everything and nothing.” After the race, though the shining piece of metal was now slung around her neck, nothing had changed.
Yes, her decades in the sport had brought her difficulties and triumphs. They had brought three Olympic silvers and two bronzes.
But they had also brought wisdom and perspective.
“It still is everything, and it still is nothing, because in six days, I’ve got school pickups and drop-offs,” she said to laughter. “At the end of the day, my boys are my motivation for this, my boys are the reason I kept going, so at the end of the day, it means nothing because I am still just mom to them.”
Yet it means so much “because of the people who helped me get here,” she added, including the husband watching her from trackside and the nanny she rushed to hug after winning.
Here is the hymn of the woman athlete in the latter half of her career. Every Olympian succeeds because of her community. The Olympic mom succeeds by building a new community around herself. Because there is no other way to do it.
Piroschka Van De Wouw/Reuters
Italian speedskater Francesca Lollobrigida, at 35, is not quite in the 40-something Olympian club. But her journey to two golds (3,000 and 5,000 meters) is one Ms. Meyers Taylor would know well.
“Especially this season, which I wanted to be the perfect one, it became one of the hardest of my life,” she said after winning the 3,000 meters. ”I was crying almost every race. I sent messages saying I wanted to quit, that I did not want to be in Milan in those conditions.”
The only way through was with help and with a plan.
“It was essential. Ever since I gave birth, my sister has been the person I leaned on. She supported me and helped me,” said Ms. Lollobrigida. “When we went to the Olympic Village, my sister and I just put everything in the car, took [son] Tommaso, and drove there. Being a mother was completely new for me.”
What did it take to win gold? Ms. Lollobrigida offered one word: “organization.”
“There are more low moments than high ones, but then this medal [means] even more for them,” she said after the 3,000 meters. “I still can’t believe it.”
Of course, there are moments of beauty, too, amid the chaos. Ms. Lollobrigida’s first call after winning the 5,000 meters? To her husband and son. “Today there was the carnival party at nursery school, and he was dressed as a fireman,” she said. “I didn’t want him to miss this party.”
At the bobsled event on Monday, Ms. Meyers Taylor was unsure whether her sons would make it to see her race. “It’s way past their bedtime!” she laughed.
Mexican Alpine skier Sarah Schleper went one better. Not only is her son here at the Games, he is also a member of the Mexican Alpine team. That makes Ms. Schleper, 46, the first Olympian to compete in the same Olympics as her son.
She was never a medal hopeful in the super-G, but she might well have taken the gold for embarrassing mom moments. During opening ceremonies, she said, “I saw him on the screen just before we marched into the Cortina stadium, and I cried,” Ms. Schleper said. “I was like, ‘Oh there he is, and he looks so cute and young!’”
She admits that perhaps it’s best that she competed at a different venue hours away.
“It’s difficult, but I also think it’s good because he can experience the Olympics as an individual instead of me telling him, ‘Oh, you’ve got to trade pins, [or] you’ve got to do this,’ ” says Ms. Schleper. “You can never stop being a mom and be just a teammate, so I’m kind of excited that he’s not right next to me all the time.”
Even for those who have not had children, the skepticism around athletic ability can be wearing. Canadian pairs figure skater Deanna Stellato-Dudek made the extraordinary decision to come back to figure skating a decade ago at age 32 – after initially retiring at 17. Even her mother thought she was “crazy,” according to an interview in The New York Times.
“Nobody expected her to persevere and to do what she has done. Nobody,” said Ann Stellato.
Yet there she was Monday night, a first-time Olympian at age 42. While an uncharacteristic mistake in the short program led to an 11th-place finish, Ms. Stellato-Dudek has won a world championship as recently as 2024.
She insists that being older has made her a better skater. “When you’ve lived a life, you really have something to offer to the audience,” she said after the short program on Sunday.
Ms. Meyers Taylor and Ms. Armbruster Humphries might say the same thing. In their first run Monday, they both set a new track record with identical times of 59.08 seconds.
Ms. Meyers Taylor is now tied with Bonnie Blair as the most decorated American woman athlete in Winter Olympic history. She’s also the oldest ever to win gold. She’ll have a chance to add another – and break that tie with Ms. Blair – in the two-woman race, which finishes Saturday.
Turns out maybe life after 40 is all downhill, after all. Just faster and faster.
Staff writer Story Hinckley contributed to this story from Milan.
Associated Press
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Jacob Turcotte/Staff