From Cortina d’Ampezzo, ITA
(February 20, 2026) – Once again, Laura Nolte is the overnight leader in Cortina d’Ampezzo.
Nolte and Deborah Levi were first off the top in the first heat and set a start record 5.09 and slid to a track record 56.97 to open things up.
But Kaillie Armbruster Humphries and Jasmine Jones had a record of their own in their sights. The duo were .08 slower than Nolte and Levi with their start, but Armbruster Humphries had the cleaner drive on her way to a record 56.92 to give the American a five hundredths of a second lead over the German.
By the end of the first heat, Lisa Buckwitz and Neele Schuten sat third, with Kim Kalicki and Talea Prepens fourth, with USA’s Elana Meyers Taylor and Jadin O’Brien fifth and Kaysha Love and Azaria Hill sixth.
After Melanie Hasler and Nadja Pasternack slid to the lead ahead of Canada’s Melissa Lotholz and Kelsey Mitchell, then Love took the leader’s box from Hasler, it was time for the second run for newly crowned Olympic monobob gold medalist Meyers Taylor.
But Meyers Taylor had trouble at the start. On the load, Meyers Taylor’s sled drifted right and hit the bottleneck at the start, sending the sled into a long skid that lasted effectively through the first two curves. The end result was Meyers Taylor having the 21st quickest run of the heat and plummeting out of medal contention into 12th place.
Kalicki had a great second effort to take the lead from Love, but was quickly picked off by Buckwitz, who was then bumped by Nolte, who cleaned up her second effort and became the only slider to put down two runs in the 56 second range.
Armbruster Humphries was the final pilot off in the second heat. She and Jones were once again just a hair off the pace of Nolte and Levi at the start, and once again Armbruster Humphries was closing throughout the bulk of her run. But the pace seemed to vanish over the final five curves as she fell to third, .23 behind Nolte.
So at halfway, Nolte leads Buckwtiz by .18, with Armbruster Humphries in third. Kalicki, in her final race, is .2 out of the medals, with Love and Hasler fifth and sixth.
“The start in the first run was great,” Nolte told the press after the second heat. “But my driving wasn’t quite up to par. I couldn’t get the bar in, then I was too late with the steering cables, and then the upper corners weren’t so good. There were also a few mistakes at the bottom; it just wasn’t what it should have been. But luckily, it was much better in the second run.”
Lotholz sits seventh, just .02 ahead of Kati Beierl and Christania Williams in eighth.
Bianca Ribi and Skyler Sieben slid to 11th, up from 12th in the first heat, with Cynthia Appiah and Dawn Richardson Wilson in 14th.
Australia’s Sarah Blizzard and Desi Johnson sit 19th overnight.
Standings After Two Heats:
| Pos | Names | Nation | Bib | Start 1 | Start 2 | Run 1 | Run 2 | Total |
| 1 | Nolte / Levi | GER | 1 | 5.09 | 5.11 | 56.97 | 56.96 | 1:53.93 |
| 2 | Buckwitz / Schuten | GER | 4 | 5.09 | 5.10 | 57.05 | 57.06 | 1:54.11 |
| 3 | Armbruster Humphries / Jones | USA | 2 | 5.17 | 5.18 | 56.92 | 57.24 | 1:54.16 |
| 4 | Kalicki / Prepens | GER | 3 | 5.15 | 5.18 | 57.13 | 57.23 | 1:54.36 |
| 5 | Love / Hill | USA | 8 | 5.14 | 5.16 | 57.18 | 57.37 | 1:54.55 |
| 6 | Hasler / Pasternack | SUI | 7 | 5.14 | 5.14 | 57.22 | 57.61 | 1:54.83 |
| 7 | Lotholz / Mitchell | CAN | 14 | 5.23 | 5.24 | 57.29 | 57.64 | 1:54.93 |
| 8 | Beierl / Williams | AUT | 5 | 5.14 | 5.17 | 57.32 | 57.63 | 1:54.95 |
| 9 | Annen / Kora | SUI | 9 | 5.19 | 5.20 | 57.42 | 57.61 | 1:55.03 |
| 10 | Walker / Reddingius | AUS | 24 | 5.18 | 5.24 | 57.45 | 57.60 | 1:55.05 |
| 11 | Ribi / Sieben | CAN | 12 | 5.20 | 5.23 | 57.57 | 57.55 | 1:55.12 |
| 12 | Meyers Taylor / O’Brien | USA | 6 | 5.20 | 5.20 | 57.14 | 57.99 | 1:55.13 |
| 13 | Huai / Wang | CHN | 13 | 5.23 | 5.25 | 57.60 | 57.60 | 1:55.20 |
| 14 | Appiah / Richardson Wilson | CAN | 11 | 5.18 | 5.20 | 57.68 | 57.66 | 1:55.34 |
| 15 | Kim / Yeon | KOR | 15 | 5.41 | 5.44 | 57.88 | 57.91 | 1:55.79 |
| 16 | Cernanska / Mokrasova | SVK | 16 | 5.32 | 5.32 | 57.94 | 57.86 | 1:55.80 |
| 17 | Boch / Senchal | FRA | 10 | 5.29 | 5.33 | 57.98 | 57.85 | 1:55.83 |
| 18 | Andreutti / Gatti | ITA | 19 | 5.35 | 5.37 | 57.76 | 58.16 | 1:55.92 |
| 19 | Blizzard / Johnson | AUS | 22 | 5.34 | 5.36 | 58.07 | 57.91 | 1:55.98 |
| 20 | Ying / Wang | CHN | 23 | 5.29 | 5.30 | 58.03 | 57.96 | 1:55.99 |
| 21 | Nicoll / Nelson | GBR | 17 | 5.26 | 5.33 | 58.03 | 57.97 | 1:56.00 |
| 22 | Weiszewski / Adamek | POL | 18 | 5.21 | 5.20 | 57.74 | 58.36 | 1:56.10 |
| 23 | de Silvestro / Costella | ITA | 21 | 5.43 | 5.47 | 58.33 | 57.93 | 1:56.26 |
| 24 | Haslwanter / Festin | AUT | 25 | 5.45 | 5.48 | 58.10 | 58.20 | 1:56.30 |
| 25 | Lin / Lin | TPE | 20 | 5.49 | 5.53 | 58.65 | 59.09 | 1:57.74 |