Elana Meyers Taylor won silver in the Olympics' first-ever monobob event on Sunday, and she shared a cute video of her son, Nico, playing with her medal.
"The moment I’ve dreamed of ❤️,” she wrote in an Instagram caption after winning the single-person bobsled event. “Olympic Silver 🥈.”
During a virtual TODAY visit on Monday, Meyers Taylor shared how she will one day explain her victory to her son, who turns 2 later this month.
“I’m going to tell him that his mama fought like she’s never fought before to go after her dream, to just do everything she could to bring this medal home for him,” she said.
Kaillie Humphries, who is originally from Canada but brought home the gold medal for Team USA after recently becoming a U.S. citizen, also joined TODAY.
Their victories made history in the first Olympics monobob event, a women-only competition that debuted in Beijing this year.
Nico is clearly his mom's biggest fan, and Meyers Taylor shared an earlier Instagram photo of Nico cheering her on in a fleece Olympic jacket.
“Monobob Day 2,” she wrote in the caption. “This one’s for you Nico ❤️.”
Her silver in Beijing marks the fourth Olympic medal for Meyers Taylor, 37, who also medaled in the Vancouver, Sochi and Pyeongchang Winter Games.
The road to this medal hasn’t been easy for the bobsledder. She tested positive for COVID-19 two days after arriving in Beijing and was unable to represent Team USA as a flag bearer at the opening ceremony because she was still isolating at a hotel.
Meyers Taylor was also separated from Nico during isolation and had to pump breastmilk to be delivered to him. She was one of the few athletes allowed to bring her child with her to the Games because she is still nursing.
Luckily, she recovered in time and was cleared to compete.
“Oh my gosh, I still don’t really believe it,” she told TODAY after her win. “It was just an incredible feeling to know that all we had gone through — me and my family and the team and everyone, to be in isolation, to come and get COVID in China, you know, to come away with any medal — I was just screaming my head off.”
The addition of monobob event, which involves a single individual athlete helming a bobsled down an ice track, is part of the International Olympic Committee's push toward gender parity at the Games.
This second bobsled event for women gives female athletes more chances to win medals in the sport — leveling them up with the men, who already have separate two-man and four-man events.
Both Meyers Taylor and Humphries have long advocated for more opportunities for women in bobsled, and Humphries shared her appreciation for her teammate on TODAY.
“This is now four podiums that we’ve shared at four Games,” she said. “We both have grown throughout this sport and been in positions where we weren’t afforded the opportunity to compete, be in the same start houses, be on the same bobsled tracks — been told, ‘You’re not strong enough, not skilled enough,’ based on our gender."
Humphries added: “To be able to know we advocated and we fought for something and then have the opportunity to be able to compete and then, you know, walk away successful — it definitely was a hard-fought battle."