Olympic champion Elana Meyers Taylor will miss World Cup bobsled season with post-concussive issues

Olympic monobob gold medalist Elana Meyers Taylor revealed Wednesday that she has been dealing with post-concussion symptoms for the past few months and will not slide in the coming World Cup season.

Meyers Taylor — whose career was nearly derailed a decade ago by concussion-related concerns — told The Associated Press that she is not planning to retire. The 41-year-old winner of six Olympic medals said the symptoms began appearing again not long after she won gold at the Milan Cortina Games in February.

“I hope to be back in a sled this winter,” Meyers Taylor said. “I just don't know when that will be.”

If she does slide this season, it would likely be in only a training or equipment-testing capacity. The World Cup season starts in late November and continues into early March.

This is not a new issue for the American sliding great, whose six medals make her the most decorated Black athlete in Winter Olympic history. Meyers Taylor stepped away from the World Cup sliding circuit during the 2015-16 season to address post-concussion symptoms, which she believed then stemmed from a crash in 2014.

She went through a scary crash in January with Olympic teammate Jadin O’Brien. They were on a training run in St. Moritz, Switzerland, for that crash, one where the front axle came off their sled, all control was lost and Meyers Taylor and O’Brien were thrown around violently. They both escaped serious injury and resumed sliding within a few days — and Meyers Taylor went on to win her first Olympic gold in the monobob event at Cortina.

“We're fully supportive of Elana focusing on her health and we'll provide all the support we can to her,” USA Bobsled Skeleton CEO Aron McGuire said.

The U.S. took three women’s pilots — all of them either world champions, Olympic champions or both — to the Milan Cortina Games this past winter and two of them won’t be sliding this season. Kaillie Humphries Armbruster, a three-time Olympic champion and six-time Olympic medalist, announced this summer that she and her husband are expecting their second child this winter.

Kaysha Love, the 2025 world monobob champion, will be back next season. In time, Meyers Taylor hopes she will be back as well.

“There will be time later to discuss details, but for now — I start intensive therapy today so if you see me around and I’m not my normal personable self — it’s definitely not you — rehab is very very demanding,” Meyers Taylor wrote in an Instagram post. “I love everyone who has supported me all these years and always love to meet you and take pictures — just forgive me if I’m not my best self at the moment. I will be soon … recovery in progress.”

AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics