Kaillie Armbruster Humphries Built The Podium That She Now Stands On
Kaillie Armbruster Humphries fought for eight years for women to have a second event at the Olympics. When the moment arrived in 2022, she showed up and won. Now the most decorated female bobsledder of all time with 6 Olympic medals, 5 World Championship wins, and over 100 international podiums, Humphries is still daring greatly.
A Medal She Had To Invent First.
When Humphries defended her Olympic gold in 2014, the first question reporters asked was: Kaillie, what's next?
Her answer took eight years to fully deliver.
"In my first four Olympics, women only had one event while men had two events. That never sat right with me. I grew up in a household where my parents fostered the idea that you can be and do anything. And being in a sport where women didn't have the same opportunities, we didn't have equal prize money, even though we were doing all the same stuff. This was insane to me."
So she did something about it. For three years, Humphries took crews - first all-men, then all-women - and competed against the men in four-man events on the World Cup tour. She wanted to "shut down the rumors". Rumors that women weren't strong enough, weren't skilled enough drivers, that two races a week was too much for the female body.
"Those things weren't true," she says plainly. "People were limiting us."
She actually didn’t set out to beat the guys. Bobsled is a gravitational sport where sled weight alone is a competitive advantage. At 5'7", 175 pounds, competing against men nearly a foot taller and 75 pounds heavier, winning wasn’t the point (nor possible). Being seen was.
"The goal was just to showcase we could do it so we could create greater opportunity long term.”
Women's monobob became an Olympic event at the 2022 Games. In the event’s debut, Humphries won the gold.
She became the first person in history to win a gold medal in an event she'd spent the better part of a decade fighting to exist. At the 2026 Games, she went back and took bronze. Two events, two podiums, a pregnancy in between.
"I fought for women to have two events since 2014 and it didn't come to fruition until 2022. In sports, goals are long-term. Every Olympic athlete works in four, eight, twelve-year cycles. It’s never about immediate gratification. For me, it was about creating more opportunity. And the fact that I got to then go out and be the first to ever win a gold medal in that event was just…it was the cherry on top.”
A Chip on Her Shoulder
Believe it or not, confidence isn’t a feeling. The greatest athletes build confidence daily by building a track record that proves they have reason to feel confident. Humphries has been building her track record for years.
"I've always had to do things the hard way," she says. "I've always had to be bigger than the doubters. There's been a lot of people that haven't always believed in my goals and dreams. And I've had to learn how to shut them out."
The limitations she felt from others gave her motivation, and the support from her inner circle gave her a backbone.
Humphries is quick to recognize that her pursuit of bobsled greatness has not been a solo act. Her coach has been with her since she was 20. Her osteopath since she was 16. Her husband gave up his job and traveled on tour for six months in Europe with her and their son so she could compete postpartum.
"My circle is small," she says. "But the belief that my people had in me was really what propelled me forward. They gave me confidence to chase any dream because I knew I wasn't alone."
Fueled by the support of her inner circle, Humphries kept dreaming big and cementing her name in the history books.
"A lot of people are scared to dream big," she says. "They listen to too many people saying it can't happen. I just don't have a fear of failure. I have more of the belief that I'm going to do everything I can to make any goal happen. And even if it doesn’t work out, I will have put my best foot forward and stayed true to myself."
Lessons from Six Olympic Medals
Humphries is one of only two women in bobsled history to ever defend an Olympic gold medal. The other is German bobsledder Laura Nolte. The achievement has notably shifted her definition of success.
"The most important thing for me is not the award at the end, and I've learned that throughout my career. Now being 40 years old and having the career that I've had, I've learned that the definition of success is being able to finish a race and being truly happy in your heart and in your mind with the work that you've put in."
She tells the story of 2022: she won gold in monobob and came seventh four days later in the two-woman. Her body, trained over 24 years for a single peak effort, delivered exactly one elite performance and then shut down.
"I can't be mad that that's what my body did," she says. "That's what I trained it to do."
The following cycle, she came back and got on the podium in both. The lesson from the seventh-place finish is what made the 2026 bronze possible.
"This Olympics, success was being able to get on the podium, being a year and a half postpartum. And I did that twice. It feels equally as good as winning gold in 2022 or 2014 or 2010. Because I performed to the best of my ability."
Dare Greatly
Humphries didn't need to look far for inspiration at the 2026 Games. Lindsey Vonn was right there in Cortina.
"I don't think there's a person on this earth that was not motivated as hell by Lindsey Vonn. She might not have achieved her mission, but her plan, her process, and her journey made her the most motivating athlete of the 2026 Olympics, hands down, across I think the entire world."
Vonn set an example of letting the process be the performance.
"That's a big fat W when you can just do your very best. It's not about the end result. It's about the journey, it's about the process, it's the attitude you put in. And so when people like Lindsay step up and showcase that to the world, it only motivates us as teammates to do the same. That's where American dominance comes in. Because it isn't just one person's performance. It's everybody's."
Humphries looks across the Team USA roster and finds motivation everywhere she looks. Athletes from different ages, races, genders, abilities, backgrounds — all daring greatly when their paths converge to represent the Stars and Stripes at the Games.
"I get to be as brave as I am because I have the backing and the support of a team. Courage isn't the absence of fear. It's a willingness to go on and do it anyways."
Twenty-four years on the bobsled line. Still nervous. And still going.
"You know, I always say to dare greatly. I don't get to be me by playing small. I don't get to achieve these goals by being half-assed or trying a little bit. I get it because I'm all in, every time, in everything I do. And when I dare greatly, great things come. It’s not without failure of course. But great things come when you’re willing to work on what you’ve got with the right people.”
The Takeaway
Humphries has pioneered the sport of women's bobsled. Advocating tirelessly to add female events, fighting for equal prize money, and choosing to make her voice heard. What's remarkable is that she credits five people. Not fifty. Five people whose belief in her was so consistent and unconditional that it became the raw material for her own.
The lesson? You don't need approval from everyone. In fact, doing something unprecedented should bring about naysayers. But you need the right people, and you need to let their belief become yours.
Humphries has had the ceiling move every time she did something others said was impossible. It’s changed her definition of success entirely. Her wins aren’t the medal at the finish line, but in the honesty of the effort on the way there. She came seventh in 2022. She doesn't call it a failure. She calls it the learning experience that made two podiums in 2026 possible.
You too can ask yourself the same question she's been asking for thirty years. It’s not "can I win?" It's "did I dare greatly enough to find out?"
ABOUT THIS SERIES
I'm Amy Wotovich, and I'm on a mission to personally interview 100% of the 2026 U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Team. How do elite athletes train their mindset, overcome failure, sustain dominance, and compete with confidence? Follow the journey to find out as Kaillie Armbruster Humphries is one of 304 athletes sharing their unfiltered answers.
