From Beijing, CHN
(February 12, 2022) – Kaillie Humphries is a two-time Olympic gold medalist in two-woman bobsled. After two runs on the sliding track in Yanqing she appears ready to add another gold to that total.
Humphries was nearly perfect over two runs as she set the two fastest runs of the race after two heats. While she was beat off the top by a handful of sliders, Humphries was unmatched through the spiral and anywhere below it. After one run she had a .30 lead but opened that up with a second run that was .36 faster than anyone else in the heat to give her a 1.04 second lead over the field.
Though she was dominant in her performance on Saturday, Humphries said there was room for improvement.
“I definitely have to work on my start,” she said. “We’re going to go back and look at some video and see where we can clean things up. I’m going to go back and polish some runners for tomorrow.”
As many have had before her, Humphries also had trouble at the bottom part of the track.
“Curve 13 wasn’t so clean, I hit the wall there and had a little bit of a skid. So I definitely need to clean that up for tomorrow. I know what I need to do, I just need to do it.”
Behind Humphries three women are still in the hunt for the medals. Christine de Bruin of Canada put down a strong second run to move up from a tie for third into second place. Germany’s Laura Nolte fell from second to third, but is only .18 behind de Bruin.
Afterward, de Bruin said she was happy with her two runs.
“It’s been pretty exciting,” she said. “Last year in my very first monobob competition I got last place. So to be out here and be in second place right now is pretty amazing!
Compared to de Bruin, Nolte was disappointed with her second run, but was looking forward to the second day of monobob.
“I think I had better runs in training, so I’m no quite satisfied with them today,” Nolte said after her second run. “My first run was okay, only a couple of small mistakes that I thought I could fix in the second run but I couldn’t. Still two more runs to go, though, so it’s not over yet.”
The United States’ Elana Meyers Taylor set the start record in the first heat and matched that time in the second. However both runs were uncharacteristically bumpy and she finds herself in fourth place with two heats to go, .1 out of the medals.
China’s Mingming Huai sits fifth, nearly a half second out of fourth, while Swiss slider Melanie Hasler rounds out the top six.
Cynthia Appiah set the second quickest start in the first heat but had a bumpy top half of her run to drop her down to 12th after one run. On her second run the Canadian was able to move her way up to tenth, tied with France’s Margot Boch.
Results:
| Pos | Name | Nation | Bib | IBSF Rank | Start 1 | Start 2 | Run 1 | Run 2 | Total |
| 1 | Kaillie Humphries | USA | 5 | 2 | 5.82 | 5.81 | 64.44 | 64.66 | 2:09.10 |
| 2 | Christine de Bruin | CAN | 7 | 4 | 5.90 | 5.90 | 65.12 | 65.02 | 2:10.14 |
| 3 | Laura Nolte | GER | 9 | 6 | 5.80 | 5.82 | 64.74 | 65.58 | 2:10.32 |
| 4 | Elana Meyers Taylor | USA | 4 | 1 | 5.61 | 5.61 | 65.12 | 65.30 | 2:10.42 |
| 5 | Mingming Huai | CHN | 2 | 14 | 5.86 | 5.84 | 65.18 | 65.72 | 2:10.90 |
| 6 | Melanie Hasler | SUI | 12 | 10 | 5.83 | 5.82 | 65.18 | 65.86 | 2:11.04 |
| 7 | Breeana Walker | AUS | 8 | 5 | 5.76 | 5.75 | 65.55 | 65.54 | 2:11.09 |
| 8 | Qing Ying | CHN | 13 | 11 | 5.79 | 5.80 | 65.16 | 65.99 | 2:11.15 |
| 9 | Andreea Grecu | ROU | 14 | 13 | 5.77 | 5.78 | 65.56 | 65.71 | 2:11.27 |
| 10 | Margot Boch | FRA | 17 | 25 | 5.86 | 5.83 | 65.77 | 65.51 | 2:11.28 |
| 10 | Cynthia Appiah | CAN | 6 | 3 | 5.62 | 5.63 | 65.75 | 65.53 | 2:11.28 |
| 12 | Katrin Beierl | AUT | 16 | 16 | 5.93 | 5.93 | 65.39 | 66.00 | 2:11.39 |
| 13 | Nadezhda Sergeeva | ROC | 10 | 7 | 5.72 | 5.75 | 65.45 | 66.00 | 2:11.45 |
| 14 | Giada Andreutti | ITA | 20 | 32 | 6.11 | 6.14 | 66.07 | 65.77 | 2:11.84 |
| 15 | Viktoria Cernanska | SVK | 18 | 26 | 6.03 | 6.01 | 65.75 | 66.41 | 2:12.16 |
| 16 | Karlien Sleper | NED | 15 | 15 | 5.85 | 5.85 | 65.88 | 66.59 | 2:12.47 |
| 17 | Mariama Jamanka | GER | 11 | 9 | 5.85 | 5.87 | 65.85 | 66.94 | 2:12.79 |
| 18 | Yooran Kim | KOR | 1 | 22 | 6.06 | 6.07 | 66.68 | 67.02 | 2:13.70 |
| 19 | Jazmine Fenlator-Victorian | JAM | 19 | 28 | 6.06 | 6.07 | 66.63 | 67.38 | 2:14.01 |
| 20 | Lidiia Hunko | UKR | 3 | 31 | 6.24 | 6.23 | 66.34 | 67.84 | 2:14.18 |
