Kaillie HumphriesOLY (néeSimundson; September 4, 1985) is a Canadian-American bobsledder. Representing Canada, she was the 2010 and 2014 Olympic champion in the two-woman bobsled and the 2018 Olympic bronze medalist with brakewoman Phylicia George. With her victory in 2014, she became the first female bobsledder to defend her Olympic title and was named flagbearer for the Olympic closing ceremony with brakewoman Heather Moyse.
Humphries was one of the first women to pilot a mixed-gender team in a four-person bobsled competition.[2] She was also the first woman to drive an all-female team against men in a four-person World Cup bobsled race.[3][4]
In 2019, Humphries switched to representing the United States because of alleged abuse and harassment that she claims she faced from the Canadian bobsled federation. She won three IBSF World Championship medals for Team USA in the 2020 and 2021 seasons, making her a five-time world champion and the most decorated woman in bobsled history. She also swept the two-woman and monobob events at the 2021 IBSF World Championships, making her the first female bobsledder to win a double world title.
Humphries was named to the U.S. bobsledding team for the Beijing Winter Olympics in February 2022, two months after she became a naturalized United States citizen, and won gold in the monobob event. This gold medal win meant she was the first woman in Olympic history to win gold medals for two different countries (United States and Canada), and the first person to win Olympic gold medals for the United States and Canada,[5]
Early years
She was born in Calgary to parents Cheryl and Ray Simundson; he was a financial planner. At age 7, after handling the gold medal of an Olympic swimmer, she set a goal to win a gold medal herself. She took up ski racing and, at age 14, was named to the Canadian national development team. She attended the National Sport School in Calgary.[6] She competed in alpine skiing until the age of 16, when she retired from the sport after breaking both legs in separate crashes.[7] In 2002, she began her bobsled career as a brakewoman and was an alternate to the Canadian team at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino.[8]
Bobsled career
Humphries was initially low on the Canadian depth chart and considered representing the United Kingdom, the country of her then-fiancé, Dan Humphries, to compete at the 2006 Olympics. Opting to remain with the Canadian team, she gained a spot on the roster after signing up for a bobsled driving school.[9]
At the 2010 Winter Olympics, Humphries won the gold medal in the two-woman competition with brakewoman Heather Moyse. The silver medal was won by fellow Canadians Shelley-Ann Brown and Helen Upperton.[11] After the final run, Humphries said: "I don't think I can put it into words yet. We did our job, you know. The goal I set as a little kid, to have done it, is amazing."[9]
After the 2010 Olympics, Humphries met with less success for nearly two seasons. She finished on the podium only once during the 2010–11 World Cup series, though her consistent top-10 finishes allowed her to finish in third place overall. She slid to fifth place overall in the 2011–12 World Cup series, though she did have four podium finishes, including three gold medals.
Humphries teamed up with brakewoman Emily Baadsvik and then brakewoman Jennifer Ciochetti for consecutive wins in the last two races of the 2011–12 World Cup. Humphries and Ciochetti also won the 2012 World Championship race in Lake Placid, marking the first gold for a Canadian women's bobsled team at the World Championships. When asked what the result meant on top of her Olympic gold, she said: "It feels amazing. It is another goal accomplished. This means a lot to me. I feel like I'm still growing as a pilot, and I try to learn from every experience. I have been working on my consistency, and I'm glad it showed here."[12] In the team event, Humphries helped guide the Canadians to a bronze medal.[13]
These three gold medals started a winning streak that would eventually break records for woman's bobsled competition.[14]
Competitiveness
Humphries, with new brakewoman Chelsea Valois, was the dominant pilot during the 2012–13 Bobsleigh World Cup season. The pair finished on the podium in all nine races that season, including a historic five straight wins from the start of the season.[14] They won the overall season championship with a record 1,960 points on six gold, one silver, and two bronze medal finishes.
Humphries' success in the winter of 2012–13 included a repeat as world champion while setting a track record at the 2013 FIBT World Championship race in St. Moritz.[15] She finished on the podium in all 10 FIBT races during the 2012–13 season, and extended her consecutive FIBT podium finishes to 13 when counting the last two races of the 2011–12 World Cup season plus the 2012 FIBT World Championship race.[14] This streak included a run of eight consecutive wins from the end of 2011–12 through the start of 2012–13, while teamed with three different brakewomen (Baadsvik for one win, Ciochetti for two wins, and Valois for the rest).[16]
The 2013–14 World Cup season saw Humphries reunited with her Vancouver 2010 teammate, Heather Moyse. Humphries extended her podium streak to 15 with a win in the first race of the season and a silver in the second race—an unbroken run of 11 gold medals, 2 silver medals, and 2 bronze medals from the end of 2011–12 through the start of 2013–14. She traded podium positions with the American team of pilot Elana Meyers and brakewoman Lauryn Williams throughout the 2013–14 season and ultimately won her second consecutive World Cup season title.
The close contest between the Canadians and Americans carried into the 2014 Sochi Olympics. Meyers and Williams led by just over two-tenths of a second after Day 1 of competition—uncharacteristically beating Humphries and Moyse at their strong suit start times, though Humphries made fewer driving errors and produced cleaner runs. On the second day of competition, the Americans again won on starting pushes but made several driving errors on the technical course. Humphries' clean piloting propelled the Canadians from second place into the gold medal position, making them the first female bobsled team to repeat as Olympic champions and the first female Canadian Olympians to repeat as champions since speed skater Catriona Le May Doan. Humphries said of the achievement: "How do you describe achieving a dream? This is a four-year goal of ours. This has been something that we've done together. Winning gold is amazing, but walking away satisfied is better. After the third run, I knew that if we did the business, we could be on top."[17][18]
Humphries received the 2014 Lou Marsh Award, given annually to Canada's top athlete.[19]
Mixed-gender competitions
After the Fédération Internationale de Bobsleigh et de Tobogganing announced that it would allow mixed-gender crews to compete in four-man bobsled, Humphries piloted a mixed-gender team to the bronze medal in the Canadian four-man bobsled championships on November 1, 2014, allowing her team to join crews led by Justin Kripps and Chris Spring as official Canadian entries on the international circuit.[20][21]
On November 15, Humphries and Elana Meyers of the United States became the first women to compete with or against men in an international four-man bobsled competition, in the season-opening North American Cup race in Park City, Utah.[2] Humphries piloted her mixed-gender sled to a sixth-place finish, while Meyers piloted hers to seventh.[2][22][23] Later the same month, Humphries and Meyers became the first women to win medals in international four-man bobsled competition when they finished second and third in a North American Cup race at the Calgary track.[24]
On January 9, 2016, Humphries became the first woman to drive an all-female team against men in a four-person World Cup bobsled race; her teammates were Cynthia Appiah, Geneviève Thibault, and Melissa Lotholz.[3][4] Although they finished last, Humphries said the purpose was to help get a four-woman bobsled division added to the Olympics.[3] She said she knew their entry would not be a contender due to the 300-pound weight difference between her team and the all-men teams.[4]
Legal actions and switch to US
In 2018, Humphries filed harassment complaints against Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton (BCS) head coach Todd Hays, high-performance director Chris Le Bihan, and president Sarah Storey. She petitioned to be freed from the Canadian team—as required by the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation, though she had no contractual obligations to BCS—in order to compete for the United States. BCS refused to release her for competitive reasons, which led to a lawsuit and a filing with the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada (SDRCC).[25]
An independent investigation by Hill Advisory Inc., which BCS hired, concluded in September 2019 that there was insufficient evidence to convict Hays, Le Bihan, or Storey.[26]
In September 2019, BCS granted Humphries' request to be released from the Canadian program, and she began to compete for the United States.[27]
On July 15, 2021, Humphries received a decision from an SDRCC arbitrator, Robert P. Armstrong, with respect to her appeal of the investigation conducted by Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton. Armstrong rejected the Hill investigation and instead ordered an independent investigation through the SDRCC. He concluded “that the investigation of Mr. Hill was neither thorough nor reasonable. As a result, the decision of the board of BCS to accept the report cannot stand. ... Mr. Hill simply makes conclusive statements without any sufficient analysis to support his conclusion."[28]
Humphries represented the United States at the 2022 Winter Olympics and won a gold medal in the monobob event, and finished in seventh place in the two-woman event with brakewoman Kaysha Love.[29]
That gold medal win meant she was the first woman in Olympic history to win gold medals for two different countries (United States and Canada), and the first person to win Olympic gold medals for America and Canada.[5]
Personal
Humphries was married to Dan Humphries, a former bobsledder who competed for Great Britain and Canada.[30] The pair divorced before the 2014 Olympics.[31]
In 2015, Humphries met American bobsledder Travis Armbruster, and they became partners in 2016.[32] September 2019, she and Armbruster were married in California.[33]
Activism
Humphries is affiliated with the "I've Been Bullied" campaign; Right to Play, a sports program for underprivileged youth; and the Special Olympics. In April 2011, through Right to Play, she and Canadian gymnast Kyle Shewfelt traveled to Liberia to set up sports programs for underprivileged children. She has also spoken at elementary schools in Calgary about the importance of physical activity, setting goals, and avoiding drugs.[34]
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