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They fought bobsled’s gender inequities. Now they have Olympic medals to show for it

YANQING, China — When Kaillie Humphries first ventured into the sport that would make her golden, its inequities alarmed her.

“We weren't allowed on the same bobsled tracks as the men,” she remembered. “We weren't allowed in the same start houses as the men. We got a tent outside in minus-20 degrees. Prize money wasn't the same.”

She was told she wasn’t strong enough, nor fast enough, nor skilled enough, and her first reaction was, “What is happening?!?”

Her second was to do something about it. To push for equity, to fight for opportunities in an old-boys-club sport.

And on Monday, a decade after that fight began, she slid to the gold medal she helped create.

Elana Meyers Taylor, her partner in the fight, slid to the silver medal she helped create too.

They high-fived, and hugged atop a podium, and sung the Star-Spangled Banner in sync, two teammates victorious on multiple fronts.

Humphries — a two-time gold medalist for Canada, now a two-month-old U.S. citizen — won the inaugural Olympic monobob competition going away, by 1.54 seconds. Meyers Taylor, still recovering from the stress and mental “fog” of COVID isolation, overcame Sunday mistakes to leapfrog Germany’s Laura Nolte and Canada’s Christine de Bruin into second.

It was a fitting culmination of a battle that Humphries and Meyers Taylor accelerated in 2014, when they raced against men, proving that women were just as capable and deserved a chance to compete in the same Olympic events.

The sport, for decades, had excluded women at every level. Way back in 1940, Katharin Dewey had beaten all-male sleds to the U.S. national title. Shortly thereafter, “safety” rules barred women from the competition. Women, for the rest of the 20th century, had few avenues into the sport. Sixty years after Dewey’s barrier-breaking win, the Olympics still hadn’t sponsored a women’s bobsled event. There were two for men.

USA's Kaillie Humphries takes part in a women's monobob bobsleigh training session at the Yanqing National Sliding Centre during the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Yanqing on February 10, 2022. (Photo by Joe KLAMAR / AFP) (Photo by JOE KLAMAR/AFP via Getty Images)
USA's Kaillie Humphries takes part in a women's monobob bobsleigh training session at the Yanqing National Sliding Centre during the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Yanqing on February 10, 2022. (Joe Klamar/AFP via Getty Images)

In 2002, two-woman bobsled arrived on the Olympic scene. But still, when Humphries arrived at her first Olympics, and Meyers Taylor at hers, they only had one shot to medal. So they began advocating, pleading, driving for a second event. They wanted four-woman, to pull equal with the men. They saw no reason they shouldn’t have it.

Instead, they got the event that debuted Sunday and concluded Monday. And they cherished it. Meyers Taylor thought back to “how much we fought for it,” to “what we went through to even get in the [men’s] four-man races,” to the people who told them they should quit.

“Just being here is such a privilege,” Meyers Taylor said. “Because we really worked for it, really worked to try and push the [International Bobsled and Skeleton Federation] to give us two events. So to be here, and to be able to have that opportunity, it's absolutely amazing.”

To Humphries, “It [means] the world. To know that we fought so hard for something — greater opportunity and participation for women worldwide — and that the IOC and IBSF and everybody listened, and provided another opportunity for us … and then be able to participate, is huge.”

They also know that it’s less about them, more about the women that will come after them, that will see double the women’s bobsled races at the Olympics, and get involved in the sport, and aspire.

But they aren’t satisfied. Monobob doesn’t equal four-man. Most of its participants would be at the Olympics anyway, driving in the two-woman event. Male bobsledders, as a result, still outnumber female bobsledders at these Games by a wide margin.

The reason for the persistent inequality is unclear. The IBSF did not respond to a Sunday email seeking comment. Some have pointed to insufficient participation on the women’s side to fill four-person sleds, to which the women say: Create the opportunity, and participation will follow.

Others have pointed to safety concerns, to which Canadian slider Cynthia Appiah says: “They said it was dangerous in 2002, they said it was dangerous in the 1950s. … There's always gonna be people that say it's too dangerous. And funny enough, it's never the women that are saying that.”

The women, instead, will keep pushing. They know “it's gonna be a fight,” as Appiah said. “I mean, you're contending against a very old sport. Women's bobsleighing, it's still in its infancy. ... So you're still kinda dealing with a lot of old-school mentality.”

But they pushed for medals as well, of course. With millions watching live on NBC back home, they won them. And the gravity of the moment overwhelmed Humphries. Her mind drifted back two decades, to 2002. She recalled watching Jill Bakken and Vonetta Flowers win the first-ever women’s bobsled gold medals.

Now, “to know that I have my little piece of history in sport is a huge accomplishment,” Humphries said. “And I'm very, very proud of that.”

“And to be next to her on the podium,” Meyers Taylor said, “it's like a storybook ending.”