U.S. Olympian Kaillie Humphries cemented her position as the most successful women’s bobsled pilot in history. And now she can say what she really thinks.
Humphries won a hard-earned bronze in the women’s two-person bobsled last weekend, marking her sixth Olympic medal, adding to her collection of three golds and two other bronzes.
Now, as Humphries looks ahead to her next contribution to Team USA, she hopes to serve on the White House Task Force for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
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She hopes to do so as a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump.
“I’m a Republican,” Humphries told Fox News Digital, adding that she voted for Trump in 2024.
Humphries owns a unique place in Olympic history as the only bobsledder to win a gold medal for two different countries.
She won gold for Team Canada in the 2010 Vancouver Games and 2014 Sochi Games. Then she went through a grueling process of becoming an American citizen, before competing for Team USA in the 2022 Beijing Games, where she also won gold.
Her process of becoming a legal immigrant and forging a new life in the U.S., having settled in San Diego, California, where she now raises a son with her husband Travis, has given her immense pride as an American. She believes it’s a system that must be upheld and respected.
“I stand with legal immigration. I think it’s a very hard process, it’s not an easy process,” she said, noting the American flag on her T-shirt. “It shouldn’t be an easy process. It’s hard, you are actively seeking something great. It’s why I can stand here and be very proud to wear this flag across my chest and represent the United States.
“In order for our country to stay the greatest country in the world, we need those checks and balances… otherwise we’re just lawless and people are making stuff up as they go.”
As a native of Calgary, Alberta, she came up through the country’s national development team as a skier, before switching to bobsled in 2002. She went on to earn her first taste of Olympic glory for Canada but had an issue with her coach after the 2018 Pyeongchang Games.
At that point, she had already begun the process of becoming a U.S. citizen, starting in 2016, but continued to compete for Canada. She soon realized she had to make a change.
“I went through a big issue with Bobsled Canada and the head coach that they had hired. And I was physically and mentally abused by the head coach. I physically feared for my safety,” she said. “When I brought it up to our administration at Bobsled Canada, they decided to back him as their choice as the coach that they hired in that Olympic year, and not back me.
“They cut my funding, they cut my support, they removed me from the team, and there was no way back on. And because I was living in the U.S. and engaged to an American at the time, I phoned up USA Bobsled.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to Bobsleigh Canada for a response.
Humphries had to earn her way onto the U.S. team, spending $70,000 on her own bobsled and even had to buy all her own equipment, before proving that she had plenty left in the tank, even in her late 30s, at U.S. trials ahead of the 2022 Bejing Games. She completed her path to U.S. citizenship in December 2021, just in time to represent the Red, White and Blue in China, where she won the first ever gold in monobob for the U.S.
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“I am so grateful that I had the opportunity that USA allowed and empowered me to be the best version of myself and continue my career and allowed me to be the best in the world for such a great country,” she said. “It was such an honor to wear the United States flag… and to represent this life now in the United States of America.”
Throughout all the hurdles and medals, Humphries developed an appreciation for the sanctity of women’s sports, and the sacrifices that women have to go through in order to earn a chance at glory.
Now, as an American living in California, she has had to witness a wave of transgender athletes that have navigated their way into women’s sports, both in her state and across the country. And she feels compelled to speak out against it.
As a hopeful member of the White House Task Force on the 2028 Summer Olympics, Humphries is in full support of Trump’s proposed mandatory genetic sex testing in order to protect the women’s category.
“I think it’s very important that women have their own category to compete in,” she said. “There’s a big difference between men and women, especially when it comes to speed, power and strength-based sports.”
Humphries recalled her own competition against men in mixed events in 2015.
“In doing so, I am 100% very certain that as a female within this sport I have no chance of competing against the men and being successful,” she said. “There’s a drastic difference. We have different chromosomes and different genetics…
“When I look at other [sports] like boxing, where there is a physical safety element, you know we have to protect women’s sports.”
Most Americans support the protection of women’s sports from trans athletes, per multiple surveys. But some women’s sports fans, often with partisan left-leaning views, have deemed efforts to bring about protections to the women’s category as “bigotry” or “transphobia,” including multiple elected U.S. politicians.
“I would ask if they’ve ever been to an Olympic-level of sport and had to try and compete against someone of a world-class caliber,” Humphries said when asked what argument she would make to those who oppose protecting women’s sports. “There’s categories for a reason… women have their own category and deservedly so, men have a category, and if the trans community would like to compete a sport, there should be a category for them as well…
“We need help in protecting women’s sports, or unfortunately, because of that big difference, it will just end up disappearing.”
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Humphries agreed that critics of protecting women’s sports are “using bigotry to disguise the flaws in their argument.”
Humphries had a moment to truly appreciate the feats of American women athletes when the U.S. women’s hockey team beat her home country of Canada in the gold medal game last week. Just days later, she celebrated the U.S. men’s team also beating Canada.
“Miracle on Ice all over again,” she called it. “To be honest, I’ve got friends on both sides. So there was part of me that I feel for individual athletes, but I am so proud that, on both sides, the men and women get to bring home gold as a very passionate American.”
Neither hockey team was able to return to the U.S. before being ensnared in the nation’s political theater.
When Trump called up the men’s team in the locker room to invite the players to the White House, he made a since-infamous comment, saying, “We’re going to have to bring the women’s team, you do know that,” adding, “I do believe I probably would be impeached,” which was met with a chorus of laughter from the players.
While many were angered by the exchange, Humphries wouldn’t let it bother her.
“I think all jokes around the world can be taken personally, not personally. I mean, that’s the point of jokes,” she said.
“Everyone will take it how they want to take it… As a female, I’m going to be sensitive to female jokes within sport, at the same point, as a high-performance athlete who believes in being the best in themselves, and is in a very male-dominated sport, which is bobsled, I can understand when a joke is a joke. So, for me specifically, I’m kind of impartial to it, because it didn’t affect me. It wasn’t a joke about me.”
She added of Trump, “I personally don’t believe that his intention was meant for the way it came across.”
The men’s team went on to visit the White House and even attend Trump’s State of The Union Address on Tuesday night, all while facing immense scrutiny from the political left for their reaction to the joke, and overall proximity to the president.
Several mainstream U.S. media outlets have penned op-eds condemning the U.S. men’s team for its association with Trump, despite such a historic victory.
“I think it’s sad that you are going to diminish an accomplishment, a great accomplishment, knowing they haven’t won in 46 years,” she said.
“For any athlete to get invited to the White House and to be proud to represent your country… whether they voted for him or not, you get to celebrate with the ultimate person that runs our government, I would have gone if I got invited. So I don’t blame them. I’m jealous that the men’s hockey team got to go, but I think it is sad that people want to pick apart the smallest portion of that instead of focusing on the positive.…
“Unfortunately, politics like to get in the way of sport.”
Humphries may get the chance to visit the White House herself, as traditionally all the Team USA athletes are invited to the White House in the spring after the winter games conclude.
It may be her last opportunity to visit the White House as an Olympic medalist, but it’s not certain, as she plans to continue competing even at the age of 40.
Still, she has other obligations as a mom with a hopefully growing family after she and Travis welcomed their son, Aulden, in June 2024. Aulden was born after a challenging journey involving endometriosis and IVF, and Humphries plans to use IVF again, and depending on how that goes, it will determine her next steps as an athlete.
But the couple has a sense of peace knowing that IVF will come with a lower cost after Trump signed a February 2025 executive order focused on reducing IVF costs.
“As an athlete and a mom, knowing insurance will now cover IVF feels like hope. The financial weight of fertility treatments can be overwhelming, and lifting that burden means we can dream about growing our family with excitement instead of fear,” Humphries said.
If Humphries does return to the sport, finding a way to top her current resume will be a challenge. She is a six-time Olympic medalist, the only female athlete in Olympic history to win a gold medal for two countries and the only athlete to win a gold in all three bobsled events.
And now, after her bronze medal win in the two-man in Milan Cortina, she and her brakeman Jasmine Jones are the first team of two moms to reach the bobsled podium in Olympic history.
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