Kaillie Humphries Armbruster of USA wins record-breaking sixth Olympic bobsled medal; Germany’s Laura Nolte takes gold

American Kaillie Humphries Armbruster found her way to the medal class in the bobsleigh with two women for the sixth time on Saturday in perhaps her Olympic bobsleigh final, while Germany’s Laura Nolte won gold again.

Nolte is now the back-to-back Olympic two-woman bobsled champion, holding off teammate Lisa Buckwitz to take gold at the Milan Cortina Games on Saturday evening.

Nolte – the winner of the last four double-women World Cup titles – cemented her status as the sport’s current queen by winning her second consecutive double-women gold medal alongside Deborah Levi, finishing four runs in 3 minutes, 48.46 seconds.

Buckwitz came second with Neele Schuten in her sled in 3:48.99. Humphries Armbruster and Jasmine Jones – two mothers in the same sled for the US – finished third in 3:49.21. It was the sixth Olympic medal for Humphries Armbruster, tying fellow countrywoman Elana Meyers Taylor for the most by any woman in the history of the sport.

Also for the US, Kaysha Love – who had been dealing with a hamstring problem for much of the season and it flared up again in Italy – and Azaria Hill finished fifth in 3:49.71. Meyers Taylor and Jadin O’Brien, who were doomed by a second heat slip at the top of the track on Friday evening, moved back a few places in the standings on Saturday and finished in a tie for seventh place 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 gap could widen on Sunday in the final sliding event of the Milan Cortina Games; Germany, who have already won the two-man race, are in a position to do the same in the four-man race after the first two legs of that competition on Saturday.

And Germany has now won 17 medals, including bobsleigh, skeleton and luge, in Milan Cortina – one more than the rest of the world. Austria has five, the US now has four along with Italy, Britain has two and Latvia has one.

The two-woman race was in fact intended for bronze going into the final run.

Nolte – who had the lead, albeit a much smaller one, going into the final heat of the monobob competition that Meyers Taylor ultimately won – led Buckwitz by 0.35 seconds going into the final 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.

Kalicki’s final time: 3:49.36. It wasn’t enough to catch Humphries Armbruster, who jumped from the sled and wrapped himself and Jones in the American flag, knowing the medal was theirs.

Humphries Armbruster’s updated Olympic medal count: three golds, three bronzes.

Meyers Taylor is 41, Humphries Armbruster is 40. Meyers Taylor is a mother of two, Humphries Armbruster has one son, and both women talk about how they would like to add another baby to their family.

That means Saturday night might have been their last on the Olympic stage – or perhaps on any sliding stage for that matter.

It was the 177th race – including World Cups, world championships, the short-lived monobob World Series and the Olympics – for Meyers Taylor at major international level. She has won 78 medals in those races, including six in the Olympics, and was a winner in three different decades as a driver or pusher.

And for Humphries Armbruster, who won three Olympic medals for Canada and now has three more for the U.S., the numbers are even more gaudy: 105 medals in 218 major international races, including 49 wins.

If this is the end for either one or both of them, what a ride it has been.

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