Elana Meyers Taylor, the New Braunfels Olympic bobsledder, just turned a trivia show appearance into a $79,000 payday for a charity that hits close to home. The 41-year-old won the money for GiGi’s Playhouse on Celebrity Weakest Link, which offers free therapeutic, educational and career programs for people with Down syndrome.
According to the San Antonio Express-News, the episode aired Monday and is available to stream on Fox One. Meyers Taylor appeared alongside fellow Olympic athletes including figure skater Nancy Kerrigan and swimmer Ryan Lochte.
The Herald-Zeitung reported ahead of the broadcast that the episode, titled “World Champions,” was scheduled to air Nov. 9 at 9 p.m., hosted by Jane Lynch. The same report named additional contestants for the episode, including Breezy Johnson, Shawn Johnson, Johnny Weir, Lolo Jones and Jackie Joyner-Kersee alongside Kerrigan and Lochte.
A Cause Rooted in Family
Meyers Taylor’s connection to GiGi’s Playhouse isn’t incidental. She and her husband, Nicholas Taylor, have a son, Nico, who has Down syndrome, the station's report notes. The couple’s other son, Noah, was also born deaf, according to the same account, and Nicholas Taylor is a fellow sliding athlete.
GiGi’s Playhouse describes itself as a network that empowers families with free therapeutic, educational and career programs for people with Down syndrome. In its 2021 annual report, the organization said its network was 99% volunteer run, with more than 9,000 volunteers, and that it operated 55 locations while serving families in 77 countries. That same report noted four new Playhouses opened in 2021, in Miami, Sacramento, Long Island and Denver.
From Winter Games to Game Shows
Meyers Taylor’s win for GiGi’s Playhouse comes on the heels of her latest Olympic triumph. She won gold in women’s monobob at the recent Winter Olympics in Italy, her sixth Olympic medal after three silvers and two bronzes in her career, per the Express-News. She is the most decorated Black Winter Olympian, with six medals.
Her advocacy for the disability community extends beyond the game show stage. NBC Sports reported that she joined the Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities in 2022, and that GiGi’s Playhouse was one of the first organizations to offer its play-based educational and support programs virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic, as she described it. NBC Sports also reported that Meyers Taylor called the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics likely her last bid for an elusive gold medal, making her fifth Games appearance all the more significant heading into this Celebrity Weakest Link win.
For New Braunfels residents, the win adds another chapter to a hometown athlete’s growing list of achievements, one that stretches from Olympic ice tracks to a Fox soundstage, all in service of a cause she lives with every day.
