There’s something uniquely risky about sliding sports. Whether hurtling at 95 mph down a slippery slope head first, feet first, or in a “rattling metal trash can,” skeleton, luge and bobsled are not for the faint of heart. Perhaps that’s why in recent years so many of the world’s best successfully have added the role of “mother” to their elite training regimen.
During the last two Olympic cycles Elana Meyers Taylor, Kaillie Humphries, Jasmine Jones and Kelly Curtis all became mothers. All four are training to make the U.S. Olympic team this season, and they’re doing so while juggling the complications of postpartum bodies, nursing babies, and helping their young children with a range of growing needs.
“I feel like I’m getting into motherhood at the best time in my sport,” Curtis, an Olympic skeleton racer said. “There’s still some ways to go, but I think because we have this network of other athletes that are all doing this while at the top level of their sport, it just makes it all the more enjoyable.”
Last season, Curtis had baby Maeve with her on tour, and she said all the athletes took turns keeping Maeve entertained. “I didn’t know this before, but the Chinese skeleton team make some great babysitters,” she said laughing. “They just love taking her around and bringing her places – it’s awesome.”
Jones, a three-time World Cup bronze medalist bobsledder who is the sole caregiver for her daughter Jade, 4, said she doesn’t know how she’d do it without the support of the sliders she trains alongside.
“I really utilize this village here at the Olympic Training Center (in Lake Placid),” Jones said. “Whether I just need an extra set of eyes, or time to go clean up my house, my teammates really step up and help me out.”
Both Jones and Curtis pointed to five-time Olympic medalist Meyers Taylor as an inspiration and guide through the process. Meyers Taylor, who gave birth to her first born, Nico, in 2020, and her second, Noah, in 2022, shared crucial information, such as correct pelvic floor rehabilitation techniques, the most knowledgeable strength trainers to go to, and which grants to apply to for support. A five-time Olympic medalist, who, in her spare time learned American Sign Language to communicate with her sons, both of whom are deaf, Meyers Taylor is a prime example that becoming a mother does not have to come at the expense of an athletic career.
My ‘why’ for bobsled has changed completely over the years. At first, it was to make an Olympic team and then to try to win a gold medal. But now my sons are my why.
Institutional support grows for new and would-be mothers
“For a long time, individuals felt they had to choose between pursuing their athletic careers and raising a family,” USABS CEO Aron McGuire said via email. “In close collaboration with our Athlete Advisory Committee, we have developed guidelines that balance the needs of parents, the safety and well-being of children, and the performance goals of the team.”
Effective since November 2003, these guidelines include those recently instituted by the Olympic and Paralympic Training Center, such as the provision of lactation or feeding rooms. But they go beyond just the obvious needs of a parent. It is now required that advance notice for team meetings be given, allowing parents time to arrange for childcare, and athletes will no longer receive penalties for missed meetings if seeing to the needs of their children.
Added to this, in 2022, the International Bobsled and Skeleton Federation implemented a new rule allowing women to retain their quota spots to compete after maternity leave. Today, athletes undergoing the arduous work of regaining peak physical condition no longer need to worry about qualifying for spots they already had earned before their pregnancies.
Returning to the ice postpartum
When Humphries, a three-time Olympic gold medalist, returned to training postpartum, she remembers feeling like “those baby giraffes learning to walk.”
“I’m starting again from basically square one, having done nothing sport related for the last year-and-a-half,” Humphries said. “It’s definitely challenging.”
Both Curtis and Jones also highlighted the process as humbling. They each returned within just a few months of giving birth, and both expected too much of their bodies.
“I was running in parking lots, my child in the car with the windows down, just trying to figure out the best-case scenario of how to get my speed back,” Jones said. “I compared myself to everyone else, and I injured myself pushing even more.”
Curtis said pelvic floor prehab and rehab was instrumental to her recovery, but it was thanks to the athlete mom community that she even knew about it. While it took nearly a full year to get back to where she had been before her pregnancy, there have been some unexpected benefits.
“Because I’m still nursing my daughter, I still have a lot of relaxin just flowing through my body,” she said.
As the name suggests, relaxin – a hormone typically produced during pregnancy and while breastfeeding – loosens joints, ligaments and muscles to prepare the body for delivery. This can make an individual more prone to injury, but when your sport requires you to sprint as fast as you can downhill while bent over at extreme angles, the added flexibility can be a bonus.
“I’m able to hit angles that I haven’t probably since I was a teenager,” Curtis said, “I’m able to lift my knee that little bit higher and strike the ground a little bit faster, and I’m pushing at either the same speeds, or faster, than before the pregnancy.”
Humphries also feels motherhood has given her an “edge.”
“Being able to be a mom just gives me this whole other superpower, I’ve learned how to operate off two hours’ sleep," Humphries said. "I’m learning how to fit things in and compartmentalize within a day, and that’s a skill that I never really had, that I think helps within sports too.”
Navigating the long competition season
That doesn’t mean that raising a child while competing doesn’t come with challenges. All three sliding sports – bobsled, skeleton and luge – follow a grueling competition circuit, requiring sliders to be on the road for many months at a time.
“My very first World Cup postpartum was all the way in South Korea,” Curtis said. “I had just been training in Latvia, and after that, I had to be in Park City for a week, and then 12 hours after the last race there, I had to be on a flight to Korea.”
She said after that, even with help from her mother for the first half of the season, and her husband for the second half, she began questioning whether she could do it all.
Having families on tour has become a welcome part of our culture, which offers support to athletes and creates memorable experiences for their children.
But for sliders, the nature of the competition circuit means having children is a hurdle that either requires expense – Meyers Taylor has a nanny with her during the season – or the sacrifice of those around them. Both Curtis’ and Humphries’ husbands put their careers on the back burner while supporting their wives, and Jones’ daughter stays with her mother in Pennsylvania for the months she is away.
“It’s hard being away from her for that long,” Jones said. “I make sure she’s squared away with the school she’s going to, and that she has enough clothes, and me and my mom coordinate on the financial stuff, so she’s not eating my mom out of house and home.”
Jones said she will always make sure she’s on top of schedules and time zone differences so she can video call with Jade, making sure she knows she’s still there for her. But this Olympic season will be especially long, with international training beginning in November, and the Games taking place in Italy through February. “I would like to try to bring her out there, but who else is going to come out with her? It’s a lot of logistics, and I don’t know if I’m ready for that,” she said.
Covering the added financial burden
Unlike some other sports, most Olympic athletes have to financially support themselves, cobbling together an income via sponsorships, endorsements and outside employment. Jones and Curtis both are part of the World Class Athlete Program, serving with the U.S. Air Force, while training and competing for Team USA. This provides a steady and necessary income for all training costs but does not cover the expenses of bringing their children on tour.
That’s where the grants come in.
Brand-name grants include those from For All Mothers, founded by Alysia Montano, which partners with Strava to offer $2,000 grants to offset the various costs of being an athlete parent. Airbnb offers a similar amount to athletes to help with travel costs that can be put toward a dependent, and other brands such as Athleta have also created funds that can help athletes make ends meet.
Curtis said she and the other moms all check in on one another, sharing when deadlines are coming up, or new grants are posted.
It’s that spirit of camaraderie, of all being in it together that fuels this new generation of athlete moms. “I think it’s awesome I’m able to bring my daughter on tour and she’s able to interact with all these awesome athletes, male and female,” Curtis said.
“I just love being a mom and an athlete at the same time,” Jones said. “Seeing her watch me on ice, or coming to Worlds, or even seeing me on TV, she knows what’s going on, and what I’m doing, and it really just makes me even happier, and I feel like I can have the best of both my worlds – of my performance on the ice track, and my performance as a mom as well.”