Kaillie Humphries was the fastest of the three American sleds after Run 2 of the two-woman bobsled competition, settling into 3rd place behind Germany’s Laura Nolte and Lisa Buckwitz.

RESULTS

Humphries may not have been on the two-woman podium at Beijing 2022, but she is no stranger to excellence in the event. The 40-year-old won gold at Vancouver 2010 and Sochi 2014, representing her native Canada. Now, she’s ever closer to claiming her first two-woman medal as a member of Team USA and sits 0.23 seconds out of gold medal position.

Defending Olympic gold medalist Nolte started first as the top-seeded sled and set a track record, but Humphries and her push athlete Jasmine Jones bested the Germans straight away by just 0.05 seconds. 

Then, Nolte and her brakewoman, Deborah Levi, found another gear on Run 2 and are now in 1st and halfway to a gold medal. Nolte is in search of her first gold at Milan Cortina after losing out to Elana Meyers Taylor by 0.04 seconds in monobob.

Buckwitz won two-woman gold at PyeongChang 2018 but came in 4th at Beijing 2022. She found a way past Humphries in the end as well and is 0.05 seconds ahead of the top United States sled. 

Kaysha Love and push athlete Azaria Hill were 6th after Run 1, 0.04 seconds behind Meyers Taylor. Love was then able to chip away at the gap on Run 2 and sits in 5th, 0.39 seconds out of medal position.

Before disaster struck, defending two-woman bronze medalist Meyers Taylor was in 5th and 0.22 seconds off of Humphries’ pace after Run 1 with her rookie brakewoman Jadin O’Brien.

However, the two made a costly mistake at the start of their second run, hitting the wall out of their start and skidding sideways into the first curve. That lost them a full second on their cumulative time and they enter Saturday in 12th place. 

"I saw it going right to the wall. I tried to steer it away and just could not react in time," Meyers Taylor told reporters at Cortina Sliding Centre. "So we hit [the wall], skidded up the first curve, and after you do that, it's game over. I tried to salvage the run as much as possible, but when you make that kind of mistake, that is devastating. It's just hard to fight back.

"You're never out of it," she continued. "It's a pretty intimidating lead, but at the end of the day, we get to go back and be in the sled. I've got two more runs at Olympic level, and I'm going to make the best of it. That's all you can really do."

The two-woman competition continues Saturday, Feb. 21, with Run 3 scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. ET. The final medal run will follow at 3:05 p.m.