SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — With the summer Olympics in Tokyo set to begin in July, a Carlsbad resident has her eyes set on the Beijing Winter Games in 2022.
Kailie Humphries, who was born and raised in Canada, moved to Carlsbad six years ago to be with her boyfriend, who is now her husband. And like a lot of kids in Canada, she grew up on skis. But when she was 18-years-old, she found bobsledding was a better sport for her. And now you might say she a pioneer in the sport.
"I've always been strong for a female, and I've always had very big legs. So for me, finding a sport where that was going to be an attribute, like bobsled, came to mind. I literally looked it up online, went to try out, and now the rest is history," Humphries said.
She is a two-time gold medalist for Canada in two-women bobsled, but now she is competing for the United States, and doing it in a brand new event.
"They are adding a second event for women and it's called the monobob," says Humphries.
At two World Cup events last month, Kaillie made history by becoming the first woman ever to win gold medals in monobob.
"I got a gold medal and a trophy in Switzerland, and a gold medal in Germany," she says. "This year is the very first year we've been able to participate in monobob."
And for women bobsledders, this is groundbreaking.
"I never thought it was fair that we only had one event, and the men had two events. The men compete in both the two-man and four-man bobsled. A lot of the responses I got for years was women are not strong enough, and not skilled enough to compete in four-man," Humphries said. "Now with the addition of monobob, women will now have, for the first time ever, two chances to win a medal at an Olympics. That brings us closer to equality with the men."
