US’s Kaillie Humphries Armbruster wins record-tying sixth Olympic bobsled medal; Germany’s Laura Nolte takes the gold

American Kaillie Humphries Armbruster, in perhaps her Olympic bobsled final, found her way to the medal stand for a record sixth time on Saturday in the women’s doubles, while Germany’s Laura Nolte won gold again.

Nolte is now the women’s back-to-back Olympic champion, holding off teammate Lisa Buckwitz to take the gold. at the Milan Cortina games on Saturday night.

Nolte – who has won the last four women’s World Cup titles – cemented her status as the current queen of the sport, teaming up with Deborah Levi to win a second consecutive women’s doubles gold medal by completing four runs in 3 minutes, 48.46 seconds.

Buckwitz, with Neele Schuten in her sled, finished second in 3:48.99. Humphries Armbruster and Jasmine Jones — two US sled moms — finished third in 3:49.21. It was Humphries Armbruster’s sixth Olympic medal, tying American partner Elana Meyers Taylor more than any woman in sports history.

Also in the US, Kaysha Love – who has been dealing with a hamstring problem for most of the season and had a flare-up in Italy – and Azaria Hill finished fifth in 3:49.71. Meyers Taylor and Jadin O’Brien, who lost their second skate to the top of the track Friday night, gained a few spots back on Saturday and finished tied for seventh in 3:50.49.

Germany now has six bobsled medals at the Olympics, while the US has three and the rest of the world has zero. The split could be huge 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 opening two matches on Saturday in the tournament.

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

The women’s doubles race was basically bronze to the finish.

Nolte – who was leading, albeit very young, going into the final monobob race that Meyers Taylor eventually won – led Buckitz by 0.35 seconds going into the final heat. Buckwitz beat Humphries Armbruster by 0.19 seconds, and Humphries Armbruster was 0.09 seconds ahead of Kim Kalicki from Germany running in the Absa Premiership.

Kalicki’s final time: 3:49.36. It wasn’t enough to catch Humphries Armbruster, who got out of the sled and wrapped himself and Jones in an 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 child to their families.

That means Saturday night could be the last in the Olympic category for them – and probably in any category of skating.

It was the 177th race – including World Cups, world championships, the provisional monobob World Series and the Olympics – for Meyers Taylor at the major international level. He has 78 medals in those races, six of them coming at the Olympics, and he won as a driver or a consolation in three different decades.

And for Humphries Armbruster, who won three Olympic medals for Canada and now has three more for the US, the numbers are even better: 105 medals in 218 major international races, 49 of them victories.

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