Kaillie Humphries (born Kaillie Simundson; September 4, 1985) is a Canadian and 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. She was also the first woman to drive an all-female team against men in a four-person World Cup bobsled race.
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,
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. She competed in alpine skiing until the age of 16, when she retired from the sport after breaking both legs in separate crashes. 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.
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.
She won the silver medal in the mixed bobsled-skeleton team event at the 2008 FIBT World Championships in Altenberg, Germany. Following a seventh-place finish in the 2008–09 Bobsleigh World Cup series, she finished second overall in the 2009-10 series with one win, two other podium finishes, and never less than a top-six finish (in a field of 20) over eight races.
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. 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."
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." In the team event, Humphries helped guide the Canadians to a bronze medal.
These three gold medals started a winning streak that would eventually break records for woman's bobsled competition.