Azaria Hill Is Carving Her Own Path—and Making Them Say Her Name

When Azaria Hill was a little girl filling out those "what do you want to be when you grow up" school projects, there was never any doubt. She wanted to be an Olympian. It was a world that she uniquely knew.

Her mother made four Olympic teams: 1980, 1984, 1988, and 1992. Her father made the 1984 Los Angeles Games. Her aunt ran track and field on the Olympic stage alongside her mom. And at 1984 LA Olympics, her parents met. The Olympic Games are quite literally, the beginning of Azaria's story. 

“I've just been around a type of excellence and elite mindset my whole life." But while every member of her family reached the Olympics on tracks and in stadiums in the heat of summer, Azaria has carved out something entirely her own. She is her family's first Winter Olympian, competing in bobsled at the Milano Cortina 2026 Games. 

"It's like me almost carving my own path and having my own journey. It's really special for me."

The Instagram DM 

After a college track career that took her from Cal State Long Beach to UNLV, she stepped away from the sport entirely. Life moved on. She got a job. She stayed fit but wasn't training at any elite level. Then one day, about two years after her last competitive race, she posted a throwback track photo on Instagram with a caption about missing the sport.

Her former UNLV teammate and Team USA bobsledder Kaysha Love saw it…and reached out: "Girl, would you consider bobsled?"

Azaria's first instinct was to say no. She hadn't been training seriously. She wasn't sure she had what it took anymore. She waited until the very last minute before finally deciding to show up to the USA Bobsled rookie camp. "I still was very very on the edge," she recalls. But she went. And she was a natural.

"A lot of the things that you learn from track, especially me being a short sprinter…that drive phase, the explosiveness, the top end speed…a lot of that stuff transfers over really well to bobsled."

USABS kept inviting her back. She kept performing. She made her first World Cup team. The rest is history. Or rather, just happened in the mountains of northern Italy.

Do It Afraid

Azaria is candid about the fear that comes with hurtling down an ice track at top speed. She remembers her first run at Lake Placid vividly: starting from start three felt manageable, almost fun. Then they moved to start one. "It was much faster, a little bit more bumpier," she says. "I literally finished the run, took a second, and sat there thinking to myself, like, what did I just go through?"

"I'm gonna do it afraid. You crash, you get out of the sled, and then you get back in."

Crashing, she explains with matter-of-fact honesty, is part of the sport.

"When you crash, you get out of the sled and then you have to get back in. Because if you don't, you're going to be afraid to get back in there."

It's a philosophy she's applied far beyond the ice: feel the fear, and go anyway. Her personal mantra has followed her from the track to the bobsled start house: "Make them say your name." 

Lately, Azaria Hill has been a name that’s very hard to ignore.

Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

What Azaria has learned, through every school transfer, every rookie camp, every bumpier-than-expected run down the track, is that growth only lives on the other side of discomfort.

"That's one thing I had to learn: getting comfortable being uncomfortable," she says. "When I've been uncomfortable, that's when I've grown the most."

On Team USA's bobsled program, brakewomen regularly rotate between different pilots (sometimes even weekly) building chemistry on the fly and adapting constantly. And like anything else, Azaria looks at it with a growth mindset: "Our journey is not linear. It's windy, and there's ups and there's downs. Being able to process and adjust is just important in life."

ABOUT THIS SERIES

I'm Amy Wotovich and I am on a mission to interview 100% of Team USA's 2026 Olympic and Paralympic athletes to create the most comprehensive mindset record of a single Games cycle. What do elite competitors actually believe about pressure, identity, failure, and joy? Azaria Hill is one of hundreds of athletes sharing their unfiltered answers. Follow the journey!