American Kelly Humphries Armbruster, in perhaps her Olympic bobsled final, moved into medal contention for a record sixth time in the two-woman bobsled on Saturday, while Germany’s Laura Nolte again won gold.
Nolte is now a back-to-back two-woman Olympic bobsled champion, having won the gold medal behind her teammate Lisa Buckwitz. at the Milan Cortina Games on Saturday night.
Nolte – winner of the last four World Cup two-woman titles – cemented her status as the current queen of the sport, teaming up with Deborah Levy to win her second consecutive two-woman gold medal by completing the four in 3 minutes, 48.46 seconds.
Buckwitz, along with Neal Shuten, finished second in 3:48.99. Humphries Armbruster and Jasmine Jones—two moms in the same sled for the U.S.—finished third in 3:49.21. It was Humphreys Armbruster’s sixth Olympic medal. Humphreys Armbruster tied fellow American Elana Meyers Taylor for the most medals ever won by a woman in the history of the game.
Also for the US, Kaysha Love – who had been battling a hamstring problem for most of the season and had it reaggravated in Italy – and Azaria Hill finished fifth in 3:49.71. Meyers Taylor and Jaidyn O’Brien, who were doomed after slipping in the second heat at the top of the track Friday night, moved back a few spots in the standings on Saturday and finished seventh in 3:50.49.
Germany now has six bobsled medals at these Olympics, while the US has three and the rest of the world has zero. The divide could get bigger on Sunday in the final sliding event of the Milan Cortina Games; Germany, which has already won the two-man race, is in position to deliver the same performance in the four-man race after the opening two heats of that event on Saturday.
And Germany has now won 17 sliding medals in Milan Cortina, combining bobsled, skeleton and luge – one more than the rest of the world. Austria has five, the US and Italy have four, the UK has two, and Latvia has one.
The two women’s races were originally for bronze medals in the final race.
Nolte – who had the lead, albeit very slight, going into the final heat of the monobob competition, which was won by Meyers Taylor – edged Buckwitz by 0.35 seconds in the last heat. Buckwitz’s lead over Humphries Armbruster was 0.19 seconds, and Humphries Armbruster was only 0.09 seconds ahead of Germany’s Kim Kalicki in the race for bronze.
Kaliki’s final time: 3:49.36. This was not enough to hold off Humphreys Armbruster, who climbed out of the sled and wrapped himself and Jones in the American flag, knowing the medal was theirs.
Humphreys Armbruster’s updated Olympic medal count: three gold, three bronze.
Meyers Taylor is 41 years old; Humphries Armbruster is 40 years old. Meyers Taylor is a mother of two, Humphries Armbruster has a son, and both women have been talking about how they would like to add another child to their family.
That means Saturday night may have been his last night on the Olympic stage — and probably on any sliding stage.
This was the 177th race for Meyers Taylor at a major international level—including the World Cup, World Championships, the short-lived Monobob World Series, and the Olympics. She has 78 medals in those races, six of which came at the Olympics, and has been a winner as a driver or pusher in three different decades.
And for Humphreys Armbruster, who won three Olympic medals for Canada and now three more for the U.S., the numbers are even rosier: 105 medals in 218 major international races, winning 49 of them.
If this is the end, for one or both, what a journey it was.
