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
FILE - United States' gold medalist Elana Meyers Taylor celebrates at the finish after the women's monobob competition at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Feb. 16, 2026.(AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi, File)
FILE - United States' gold medalist Elana Meyers Taylor kisses her medal on the podium of a women's monobob competition at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Feb. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, File)
PEREIRA, Colombia (AP) — The search for survivors in the rubble of Colombia’s powerful earthquake grew more desperate on Wednesday, two days after the quake brought down buildings, buckled roads and crushed cars.
The devastation has tested Colombia’s new President Abelardo de la Espriella and his government as it scrambles to respond to the natural disaster and civil society as it pushes to provide aid to the vulnerable communities most affected by the quake.
By Tuesday, de la Espriella said the 7.4 magnitude earthquake had killed at least 181 people and left 2,595 more injured in the west of the country. He said at least 195 remained missing, but civilian-run databases put that number at more than 4,000 Wednesday morning.
Teams continued to pick through the rubble overnight in the hardest-hit cities of Cali, Pereira, Manizales and Quibdo, as time ticked away for victims to be found — and rescued — alive.
Aid agencies consider the first 48 to 72 hours crucial for retrieving survivors, though that threshold can be extended if those trapped have access to food and water.
There have been fleeting moments of hope amid the devastation.
In hard-hit Pereira, rescuers pulled Daniela Largo alive from the rubble late Tuesday, capping a complex 12-hour rescue in which crews carved a small opening through the debris to free her pinned arm and a doctor administered IV fluids to stabilize her. Wrapped in a blue blanket, the young woman was carried to a waiting ambulance as firefighters embraced and onlookers erupted in cheers.
Across the coffee-growing region, among the areas worst affected by the quake, authorities have converted sports arenas, schools and other public buildings into temporary shelters for thousands of displaced Colombians. In Pereira and Cali, families have been sleeping in parks — some fearing aftershocks or the collapse of their damaged homes, others without homes to return to.
“We have the most important things: a roof over our heads, food, water and, in my case, medical care,” said Edith Penagos, 48, who was staying with her teenage son in one of the white tents set up in a Pereira park after the earthquake forced them from their apartment.
Colombia’s geological service has documented 130 aftershocks since the quake.
Rodrigo León Loya, a seismologist and professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of the Andes, said the probability of an earthquake of a similar magnitude occurring in the same area has fallen because “the accumulated energy” has been released. But he would not rule out more seismic activity.
“Let’s remember that Colombia is full of active fault lines,” he said. “The question isn’t whether it can happen again. The question is rather when an earthquake of similar magnitude will occur at another of Colombia’s seismic sources.”
In many areas, the official response to the disaster has been complicated by the ongoing crises of deep poverty and civil warfare that has created waves of forced displacement for decades.
“This earthquake compounds an already severe humanitarian situation, and there is a need for increased support for the humanitarian response,” said Giovanni Rizzo, Colombia director for the Norwegian Refugee Council.
Many aid organizations were already on the ground at the epicenter of the quake in Colombia, supporting a 2016 peace accord between the government and leftist rebels, and responding to violence involving other armed groups that has persisted since then, particularly in Choco.
That presence allowed humanitarian workers to quickly pivot to disaster relief, said María José Torres, the U.N. resident coordinator in Colombia.
“We have a presence on the ground. Therefore, our ability to be there, present with the people, I think, has increased exponentially,” Torres said in a statement Tuesday.
At the same time, aid from other countries and nonprofits abroad continued to roll in.
On Wednesday, the State Department said it would send two search and rescue teams to Colombia that helped with rescue efforts in Venezuela just weeks before. The U.S. has also offered over $15 million in aid.
Mexico’s president has said she is prepared to send hundreds of search and health workers, tons of health supplies and other equipment.
On Tuesday afternoon, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said his country would send two planes loaded with 100 tons of aid.
“Our prayers are with the families of the victims, the wounded and all the Colombian people,” Bukele wrote on X.
Suarez reported from Bogota, Colombia, and Janetsky reported from Mexico City. Associated Press writers Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, Isabel DeBre in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Gabriela Aoun in San Diego contributed.
Rescue workers cut through debris as they attempt to rescue survivor Daniela Largo, who was trapped in the rubble the day after an earthquake struck Pereira, Colombia, Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)
People camp out in a park two days after an earthquake damaged their homes in Pereira, Colombia, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)
Residentes embrace as rescue workers search through the rubble of their damaged home the day after an earthquake struck Cali, Colombia, Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Santiago Saldarriaga)
Rescue workers carry a survivor Daniela Largo after pulling her from the rubble the day after an earthquake struck Pereira, Colombia, Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)
Neighbors embrace as rescue workers search through the rubble of a collapsed apartment building the day after an earthquake struck Cali, Colombia, Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)
Volunteers and rescue workers use buckets to remove debris of a collapsed building a day after an earthquake struck Cali, Colombia, Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Santiago Saldarriaga)
Patients from a clinic evacuated due to earthquake damage lie in beds at a temporary facility set up in a gymnasium at a nearby school in Cali, Colombia, Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Santiago Saldarriaga)
Rescue workers carry Diana Troncoso after pulling her from the rubble the day after an earthquake struck Cali, Colombia, Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia) CORRECTION: Changes city to Cali, not Pereira.
