Kaillie Humphries and Elana Meyers Taylor leaving legacy in bobsled greater than their many medals | Opinion
BEIJING — Kaillie Humphries and Elana Meyers Taylor want the same thing.
An Olympic gold medal for themselves, of course. Bigger picture, though, both want more opportunities for every woman in bobsled.
“I want to make the sport better,” Meyers Taylor said. “I always want to leave the sport better than what I found it, and hopefully that’s happening.”
The evidence of it abounded Sunday at the Yanqing National Sliding Centre as monobob made its Olympic debut.
For the first time in the sport, women have the same number of medal opportunities as the men. Equally but maybe not as obviously notable were the sleds of Slovakia, Ukraine, the Netherlands, South Korea and Jamaica. None of them have women’s teams in two-man at the Beijing Olympics, making this their only opportunity in bobsled at these Games.
For Slovakia and Ukraine, it’s their first time ever competing in women’s bobsled at the Olympics.
“It does provide a lot more opportunity,” Humphries said. “I would like to see that, in the future, women have four-man and that we can double our numbers as well, just like the men. And that the men will be able to do mono.
“I would love to see true equality across the board,” she added. “Just greater participation in the sport that l love so much, for all genders.”
Between them, Humphries and Meyers Taylor have six Olympic medals and seven world titles. They have dominated their sport for much of the last decade.
Humphries won gold as a driver in two-man at the 2010 and 2014 Olympics, and was the bronze medalist in 2018. She won the world championships in two-man in 2012, 2013, 2020 and 2021, when she also won the inaugural world title in monobob.
Meyers Taylor has silver medals as a driver from the 2018 and 2014 Games, and a bronze as a brakeman from 2010. She was the world champion in two-man in 2015 and 2017, and won the overall World Cup titles this year in both two-man and monobob.
If they had wanted to just continue hoarding hardware for themselves, not worrying about anyone else, no one could have blamed them. That’s the whole point of competition – to win.
But Humphries and Meyers Taylor have had to fight for opportunities their entire careers, which began not long after women’s bobsled was added to the Olympic program in 2002. Men’s four-man bobsled, meanwhile, had been in the Winter Games since they began in 1924, with the two-man race added eight years later.
Humphries and Meyers Taylor want things to be easier for the next generation. And the generation after that. And the generation after that, until the idea that it’s OK to treat women as less than men is as ludicrous as it sounds.
Winter Olympics live updates: Kaillie Humphries halfway to gold in monobob; men's hockey faces Germany
Go behind the scenes in Beijing!: Get text updates from our reporters on the ground at the Winter Games
The Winter Olympics in your inbox: Sign up for our daily newsletter so you stay up to date with everything going on in Beijing
Though Humphries was competing for Canada at the time, she and Meyers Taylor began lobbying international bobsled officials around 2014 to add a four-man race for women. They were initially rebuffed with the same, tired excuses that had kept them out of the sport for so long: Women aren’t strong enough. Women aren’t skilled enough.
They were eventually told they could race as part of mixed crews, which they did. They also helped organize a women’s four-man event at the world championships about five years ago.
“You definitely get to a point within sport when you think 'what’s next?' And the question you get is, 'how do you continue to get better?' And that’s by pushing ourselves,” Humphries said. “I think that’s why Elana and I are in this position.”
Bobsled officials continued to resist, saying there weren’t enough countries that could field four-person women’s teams. But the International Olympic Committee, looking to improve gender balance at the Games, said in 2018 that it would add monobob, beginning in Beijing.
It’s not the same as what the men have, but it’s a start.
“Just being here is just such a privilege because we really worked for it,” Meyers Taylor said. “To be here, to have that second opportunity is absolutely amazing.”
Humphries has a commanding lead midway through the race, 1.04 seconds ahead of Canada’s Christine de Bruin. To get an idea of just how big a gap that is, de Bruin is closer to Ying Qing of China, who is in eighth, than she is to Humphries.
Meyers Taylor stands fourth, 1.32 seconds behind Humphries, but just .10 out of third.
Both Humphries and Meyers Taylor are closer to the ends of their careers than the start – Meyers Taylor is 37 and Humphries is 36 – and are unlikely to still be competing when, or if, a four-man race is added for women. But they know that, because of what they did, the sport is in a better position than when they began.
“When both of us are willing to put ourselves on the line like that, it will help raise the game for everybody,” Humphries said. “Which is important.”
The legacies of these two women are so much more than just the medals they win, many as those may be. It’s the medals that will be won by all the women who come after them, too.
Follow Paste BN Sports columnist Nancy Armour on Twitter @nrarmour.