Germany’s Laura Nolte led going into the fourth and final run but slipped to second and had to settle for silver ahead of American defending champion Kaillie Humphries who took bronze.
Meyers Taylor had won three silver and two bronze medals in her previous four Olympic appearances and looked set for another minor medal until the final seconds of a nerve-shredding contest.
Nolte, a gold medallist in the Two-Woman in 2022, opened Monday’s proceedings with a 59.15 track record and it seemed the battle for gold was already over.
The vastly experienced Americans, however, were not about to give up that easily. Meyers Taylor steered superbly to immediately set another track record of 59.08 seconds – which Humphries, a youngster at 40, promptly matched.
That left double world champion Nolte only 0.15 ahead going into the final run.
Humphries, who had previously won two golds for Canada in the Two-Woman before switching allegiance, clocked 59.54, which was enough for bronze.
Meyers Taylor then put down a 59.51, seemingly leaving the door open for Nolte. However, the 27-year-old German caught a wall early and then suffered another skid to lose ground and could not make it up at the finish as she clocked 59.70 – good enough only for silver.
Monobob is seen as an egalitarian test of technique as all athletes use identical sleds, theoretically eliminating the considerable technological gains that can be made by the stronger countries.
Four years ago, in its first appearance at the Olympics, Germany failed to make the podium, despite taking seven of the other nine bobsleigh medals available.
Since then Nolte has emerged as the number one, twice winning the world championship and topping the World Cup standings this year.
But on Monday the calm experience of Meyers Taylor in the heat of the biggest competition of all made the difference.