Nolte leads, US drivers Meyers Taylor and Humphries Armbruster giving chase in Olympic monobob

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — The only thing Elana Meyers Taylor has yet to do in her bobsled career is win Olympic gold, which made her process of choosing a strategy for the final two runs of the women’s monobob race at the Milan Cortina Games extremely easy.

“I’m chasing,” Meyers Taylor said.

Game on. The medal hunt in Cortina could be a wild one Monday night.

Laura Nolte of Germany is the leader after Sunday's first two runs of the women's monobob competition, finishing in 1 minute, 59.12 seconds. And right on her heels — a pair of American 40-something mothers in Meyers Taylor and Kaillie Humphries Armbruster, chasing even more Olympic medals for their collections.

Nolte's lead is 0.22 seconds over Meyers Taylor and 0.31 seconds over Humphries Armbruster going into Monday night's final two runs of the competition.

“It’s coming down to the wire," Humphries Armbruster said. "There's definitely lots of room to make mistakes on this track. Ice conditions are changing every single run. I've got to work real hard at the start. I’m trying to keep up with mid-20-year-olds and I’m still only year and a half postpartum, so there’s definitely still room for improvement.”

After the first three, there's a bit of a gap to the rest of the medal-chasing pack: Switzerland's Melanie Hasler is fourth, 0.78 seconds off Nolte's lead, and Kaysha Love of the U.S. is fifth — 0.89 seconds back.

It is a loaded leaderboard.

Nolte is the reigning World Cup overall monobob champion. Humphries Armbruster won monobob gold at Beijing when the sport debuted in the Olympic program four years ago. Meyers Taylor won the silver in that Olympic race. Hasler is a 10-time World Cup medalist, always seeming to be on the brink of a breakthrough. Love — who clearly wasn't happy after experiencing a ton of trouble in her second heat, dropping one spot to fifth — won the world monobob title last year at Lake Placid.

“Everything is still open. This is monobob," Hasler said. "It’s definitely going to be hard to stay in the fourth place, but I want to attack the medals for sure.”

Did Meyers Taylor expect it to be this close?

“No, no,” she said. “Actually, I thought it would be even closer. … It’s a very competitive field, the girls are all really great and it’s just one of those kinds of tracks where it’s anybody’s ball game.”

Australia's Bree Walker, a winner of five medals — three gold — in seven World Cup races this season, struggled in her first heat but rallied to be seventh going into Monday, one spot behind Lisa Buckwitz of Germany. But they're both about a full second behind Nolte, and well over a half-second behind the bronze-medal spot.

“Olympic Games are four heats and it’s a marathon," Walker said. "And you just have to keep going, keep going, keep going.”

Nolte had the fastest time in the first heat; Humphries Armbruster had the fastest time in the second heat.

“I wasn’t nervous at all," Nolte said.

That may not have been totally truthful.

“I mean, of course, a little bit nervous," she confessed. "I’m always a little bit nervous, or excited. But I can also trust my abilities.”

Her abilities aren't in question: Nolte won seven and medaled in 13 of the 14 women's World Cup races this season — and she's been even better in two-woman than she's been in monobob. But she came to Cortina with a goal of double gold, and after Day 1, she's in the best spot.

But to win Monday night, she'll only have to hold off the two best Olympic women's bobsledders ever: a five-time medalist in Meyers Taylor, and a four-time medalist — three of them golds — in Humphries Armbruster. They're the two oldest women's bobsledders in Olympic history, and still in position to find their way to the medal stand.

“Just put down four good runs and see what happens,” Meyers Taylor said. "It’s about putting down four runs and we’ll see, because I’m ready to go after it. I’m ready to get to it. Kaillie's driving well and Laura’s driving well, so I've got my hands full.”

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

Switzerland's Melanie Hasler starts for a women's monobob run at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)

United States' Kaillie Armbruster Humphries starts for a women's monobob run at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)

Germany's Laura Nolte starts for a women's monobob run at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)

United States' Elana Meyers Taylor starts for a women's monobob run at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)

Australia's Bree Walker starts for a women's monobob run at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)

Germany's Laura Nolte prepares to start for a women's monobob run at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)

United States' Elana Meyers Taylor starts for a women's monobob run at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)

United States' Kaysha Love starts for a women's monobob run at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)

United States' Kaillie Armbruster Humphries starts for a women's monobob run at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)

MILAN (AP) — Jordan Stolz is so preternaturally calm and apparently impervious to nerves that the two-time Olympic gold medalist's coach, Bob Corby, does occasionally wonder whether his star speedskating pupil might be a little too relaxed.

One example: Before Stolz was due to compete in the 500 meters at the Milan Cortina Games, Corby found him laying down in the athletes' lounge, not a care in the world, as race time was getting closer.

“I’m like, ‘OK, OK. Are we going to warm up? Are we going to warm up?’ Finally, I shook him,” Corby recounted Saturday following Stolz's victory in the 500 that came on top of an earlier win in the 1,000 at these Olympics. “And he goes, ‘Oh, yeah.’ Looks at his watch. ‘I still have 45 seconds until my alarm goes off.’”

A smiling Corby explained: “That's just normal behavior for him. One of the other coaches asked me one time: ‘So do things bother him?’”

Sure doesn't seem so on the ice.

As long as Stolz is healthy, the 21-year-old from Wisconsin tends to finish first, no matter the setting or circumstances. His first career Olympic golds — making him only the second man, along with Eric Heiden at Lake Placid in 1980, to complete the 500-1,000 double at one Winter Games — had been anticipated, if not downright expected, by many before competition began in Milan.

He holds the world record in the 1,000 and is unbeaten in that event this season. He won five of nine World Cup 500s this season. He is a two-time world champion in both of those events, plus the 1,500, which is coming up Thursday.

And then Stolz will race in the mass start on Feb. 21, his fourth, and last, event.

Does he ever have a case of the jitters?

“Oh, yeah. For sure,” Stolz said. “Before the 1,000, I was feeling nervous, just because it was the first one and it’s, like, the Olympics, right? And it’s super important. Even just watching (others race the 5,000 last weekend ) made me a little bit nervous, because you’ve waited four years to get here and now you only have one chance to win. And I've been winning all the 1,000s, I don’t know for how long, and I thought, ‘I really don’t want to lose this one.’"

That triumph meant the tension receded for the 500.

“I felt a lot less pressure today, just because I got the first one out of the way,” Stolz said Saturday. “And I thought this one’s, like, not worth stressing over, because it’s going to be a toss-up, either way.”

He used a good start and his usual finishing verve to get past Jenning de Boo of the Netherlands in their head-to-head heat at the sport's shortest distance. On Wednesday, in the 1,000, Stolz also shared the ice with de Boo in a heat and also came through at the end, that time after trailing with 400 meters to go.

Corby called the 500 performance the best of Stolz's career.

“I would agree with that,” Stolz said. “I didn’t feel too many difficulties in it.”

Well, then.

“He loves training. He loves racing. He does not get that anxious and nervous when he’s out there,” Heiden said. “I don’t know if he really is concerned about what everybody else is doing. He’s more concerned about: Is he going to perform up to his expectations?”

Stolz's father, Dirk, said he and Jordan spoke on the phone at about midnight on Friday night.

Listening to “the tone of his voice,” Dirk Stolz said, made him realize Jordan was not anxious. He was confident.

“You see some athletes, just mentally — they might be physically all there, but all of a sudden, the pressure comes in and it affects their performance, and I don’t see it with Jordan a whole lot. He’s pretty relaxed,” Dirk Stolz said. “At the end of the day, it’s another race at another place, really, with different scenery, right? That’s how you got to look at it.”

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

Jordan Stolz of the United States, left, and Jenning De Boo of the Netherlands compete during the speed skating men's 500m at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

Jordan Stolz of the U.S. concentrates prior to competing in the men's 500 meters speedskating race at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

Gold medallist Jordan Stolz of the U.S. celebrates after the men's 500 meters speedskating race at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

Jordan Stolz of the U.S. competes in the men's 500 meters speedskating race at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Jordan Stolz of the U.S. and coach Bob Corby talk after the men's 1,000 meters speedskating race at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)