Kaillie Humphries knows what it takes to move a refrigerator at full speed. After all, the six-time Olympic medalist has spent over two decades competing in bobsled. She jolts off a starting line while pushing a sled weighing hundreds of pounds, jumps inside, and seconds later trades that brute force for enough precision to steer the sled down an icy track at speeds as high as six g’s.
“It’s immediate from one to the other. I need to be the strongest, fastest, most fierce on that start line, pushing that sled,” Humphries told IW Features. “And then I have to get in and have the grace and calmness to be able to navigate and drive that sled down and hit the perfect line, driving as little as possible so that I can be the fastest.”
And Humphries has gotten very good at it.
The Calgary native grew up in the city that hosted the 1988 Winter Olympics, and when she was in elementary school, she decided she wanted to become an Olympian. At first, she thought skiing would get her there, but in her teenage years, she switched to bobsled.
“And that turned out to be where all the magic happened,” she said. “Three years later, I went to my very first Olympics, and it all just kind of took off from there.”
Humphries went on to win Olympic gold in two-woman bobsled in 2010 and 2014, then bronze in 2019 while representing Canada. Once she became an American citizen and joined Team USA in 2021, she went on to win the inaugural Olympic women’s monobob competition in Beijing in 2022. And in 2026, at age 40, she added two more bronze medals, making her the most decorated Olympic bobsledder in history.
That success is precisely why Humphries feels a responsibility to protect the opportunities that allowed her to build a boast-worthy career in the first place.
“I’ve been able to live out my goals and dreams as an athlete, as an Olympic gold medalist, do it multiple times, make history,” Humphries reflected. “I’ve been able to do it in an environment that women have fostered far before I got there.”
That admiration for the women who came before her inspired her next professional move-––becoming an ambassador for Independent Women, where protecting women’s sports is among the top issues she plans to champion.
“I want all these young girls now to have every opportunity that I had, if not more,” she said. “Women’s sports need to be protected and defined by sex, not by identity. Biology is what should be what defines women’s sports.”
For Humphries, the opportunity to participate in sports has been the gift that just keeps on giving. She credits athletics with teaching her teamwork, perseverance, leadership, goal-setting, and how to trust both herself and others. Sports also has given her lifelong friendships and a community of strong women spanning the grassroots level to the Olympic podium––all cheering on her success.
Those experiences translate into the legacy she wants to leave behind. Girls’ and women’s sports are under threat from ideologues blurring the line between sex and gender, as males––whose innate physical advantages supersede those of females––are increasingly allowed to play on girls’ and women’s teams. Humphries won’t stand for it.
“Fight for the things that are worth fighting for,” she said. “Creating that space to protect women’s sports, to keep it for biological women, not for an identity, but a space that is for women based on sexes is worth fighting for.”
No matter how strong the opposition is, Humphries emphasized that girls and women need to stand up for something bigger than themselves as individuals.
“Stand up, pick and choose your battles, but definitely don’t just stay silent because you’re told to,” she said.
Humphries wants the girls dreaming of athletic careers of their own to know the opportunity will still be there for them.
“Making sure that women far beyond whenever I’m done in sport continue to have that opportunity, if not more, is an important legacy piece that I want to leave,” she said.
