Elana Meyers Taylor Secures Fourth Monobob Victory of World Cup Season
by Karen Price
Elana Meyers Taylor competes during the IBSF World Championships 2021 Altenberg Women's Monobob competition on Feb. 13, 2021 in Altenberg, Germany.
The new year is certainly starting off well for three-time Olympic bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor.
Last weekend, she won her first two-woman world cup bobsled race in nearly three years and on Saturday, she captured her fourth monobob victory of the season in Winterberg, Germany. The win catapulted her to the top of the overall monobob standings, sending her past Breeana Walker of Australia. She holds a 70-point lead with just one race left in the world cup season.
“It’s really cool to come away with the lead after today’s win,” Meyers Taylor told USA Bobsled & Skeleton. “I’m trying to put together two consistent runs, and I’m starting to figure things out in monobob. The four races I’ve won were on runners from Jamie Greubel Poser; she just keeps on giving and it’s pretty cool to have a former teammate continue to contribute to the sport.”
Meyers Taylor had the fastest start time of the first heat at 5.85 seconds and finished in 59.28 seconds to take the lead by 0.21 seconds. It was a significant gap to take into the second heat, where she again posted the fastest start time at 5.81 seconds. Her finish of 59.48 seconds was second to Walker, but her combined time of 1:58.76 gave her the win by .17 seconds.
Walker finished second with a combined time of 1:58.93 and Germany’s Laura Nolte was third in 1:59.01, while U.S. teammate Kaillie Humphries finished just off the podium in fourth place with a time of 1:59.17. When Humphries competed in Winterberg last month she was 13th.
Meyers Taylor did not race monobob last weekend in Sigulda, Latvia, as she tries to preserve her body leading into the Olympic Winter Games Beijing next month. Humphries didn’t race at all.
Meyers Taylor is also traveling this season with her husband and son, Nico, and credited the team effort around her racing.
“If I’m busy with Nico, everyone on the team understands and they are jumping in where needed to help me get prepared to race,” Meyers Taylor said. “Normally there’s a lot of drama in an Olympic season, so it speaks to the quality of the character of the athletes on this team.”
Men’s two-man bobsled was also in action Saturday. The U.S. team of Hunter Church and Charlie Volker finished 13th and Frank Del Duca and Hakeem Abdul-Saboor were 15th.