USA’s Kaillie Humphries Armbruster wins record-tying sixth Olympic bobsled medal; Germany

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

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

Nolte, the winner of the last four two-woman World Cup titles, cemented her status as the sport’s reigning queen, teaming with Deborah Levi to win her second consecutive two-woman gold medal by finishing four races in 3 minutes, 48.46 seconds.

Buckwitz, with Neele Schuten on her sled, was second in 3:48.99. Humphries Armbruster and Jasmine Jones, two mothers in the same sled for the United States, finished third in 3:49.21. It was the sixth Olympic medal for Humphries Armbruster, tying up fellow American Elana Meyers Taylor more by any woman in the history of the sport.

Also for the United States, Kaysha Love, who has been dealing with a hamstring issue for much of the season and suffered again in Italy, and Azaria Hill finished fifth in 3:49.71. Meyers Taylor and Jadin O’Brien, who were doomed by a second-run skid at the top of the track Friday night, made up some spots in the standings Saturday and finished in a tie for seventh in 3:50.49.

Germany now has six bobsled medals at these Olympics, while the United States has three and the rest of the world none. The division could widen on Sunday in the final sliding event of the Milan Cortina Games; Germany, which already swept the two-man race, is in position to do the same in the four-man after Saturday’s first two heats of that competition.

And Germany now has 17 medals in sliding, including sledding, skeleton and luge, in Milan Cortina, one more than the rest of the world. Austria has five, the United States now has four along with Italy, Britain has two and Latvia has one.

The two-woman race was basically for bronze heading into the final race.

Nolte, who had the advantage, albeit a much smaller one, going into the final heat of the monobob competition that Meyers Taylor ended up winning, led Buckwitz by 0.35 seconds entering the final heat. Buckwitz’s lead over Humphries Armbruster was 0.19 seconds, and Humphries Armbruster was just 0.09 seconds ahead of Germany’s Kim Kalicki in the race for bronze.

Kalicki’s last time: 3:49.36. It wasn’t enough to catch Humphries Armbruster, who jumped off the sled and wrapped herself and Jones in the American flag, knowing the medal was hers.

Humphries Armbruster’s updated Olympic medal tally: 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 families.

That means Saturday night could have been the last on the Olympic stage for them, and perhaps on any sliding stage.

It was the 177th career (counting World Cups, world championships, the short-lived monobob World Series and the Olympics) for Meyers Taylor at a major international level. She has 78 medals in those races, six of them in the Olympic Games, and was a winner as a driver or pusher in three different decades.

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

If this is the end, for one or both, what a journey it was.