Kaillie Humphries

Kaillie Humphries Completes Weekend Sweep of Bobsled World Cup Gold Medals

by Alex Abrams

Kaillie Humphries poses at a Team USA Beijing 2022 Olympic shoot on Sept. 12, 2021 in Irvine, Calif.

 

Kaillie Humphries was constantly on the move, going from Germany to Los Angeles, back to Germany and then finally to the top of the medal podium.
After all her traveling over the past few days, she was still able to make winning look easy.
Humphries capped a whirlwind week on Sunday when she teamed with Kaysha Love to win the two-woman bobsled race in 1 minute, 54.10 seconds at the women’s monobob world series competition in Altenberg, Germany.
It was Love’s first career world cup victory and the second win in as many days for Humphries, a two-time Olympic gold medalist for Canada.

 

 


Humphries earned a sweep in Altenberg with Sunday’s strong performance. A day earlier, she won the women’s monobob race with a two-run total of 2:00.57.


“I was able to rely on my experience over these last two days,” Humphries said. “I’ve raced here many years, and I’ve worked extremely hard to be able to be at this level. What you saw was years and years of trial and error coming together and an absolutely amazing team.”


Humphries and Love stood in second place after posting a time of 56.99 seconds on their first run. They followed it up with the fastest time of the second run — 57.11 seconds — to earn the victory over Germany’s Laura Nolte and Deborah Levi by .04 seconds (1:54.14).


Americans Elana Meyers Taylor and Sylvia Hoffman put together two strong runs to finish fifth at 1:54.77.

 

“It’s so exciting,” said Love, who is in her first season and won in just her second world cup race. “I was very excited to push for Kaillie, and I was hopeful that I could give her a chance for another podium finish. As always, you never know what’s going to happen, but I wanted to go out there and do my best.” 


Humphries had only one day to train in Germany before flying back to Los Angeles on Wednesday to be sworn in as a U.S. citizen. She had no time to enjoy the moment, though, and immediately returned to Altenberg in time to earn two gold medals this weekend.


Humphries, a native of Canada, has competed for the U.S. in other world cup events as a green card holder. However, she needed her U.S. citizenship to compete under the American flag at the upcoming Winter Olympic Games Beijing 2022.


She has lived in the U.S. since 2016.


“What a great day for the women’s program,” U.S. coach Mike Kohn said. “I’m really excited about the teamwork that this team is showing.”

Alex Abrams #


Alex Abrams has written about Olympic and Paralympic sports for more than 15 years, including as a reporter for major newspapers in Florida, Arkansas and Oklahoma. He is a freelance contributor to TeamUSA.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.