VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Olympic Bobsled Champion Kaillie Humphries On Getting Her US Citizenship, Sexism In Sports

Team USA bobsledder Kaillie Humphries is the most decorated woman in bobsled history, according to Team USA, and she’s going back for more during the Beijing Olympics.

Humphries previously competed for Team Canada and won two gold medals and one bronze before she joined Team USA in 2019 and proceeded to win multiple championships. She became an American citizen just in time to qualify to compete in the Olympics for Team USA this year.

“You’re looking at the newest CITIZEN of United States of America ??,” she wrote on Instagram. “I’m living proof that the American Dream still exists. Immigration is not just a link to the past. It’s also a link to the future, and ‘The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams’.”

Humphries believes in pushing for equality for her sport so that everyone can have a chance to compete.

“I grew up in the sport where we weren’t allowed on the same bobsled tracks as the men,” she said. “We weren’t allowed in the same start houses as the men, we got a tent outside in minus 20 degrees, prize money wasn’t the same and I literally have been told ‘you’re not strong enough, you’re not fast enough, you’re not skilled enough as a female, we won’t put you in’.”

For the first time since it was introduced into the games in 2002 women’s bobsledding will have equal medal opportunity for both men and women, a move which Humphries thinks is a step in the right direction.

Article by Dylan Valic