Kaillie Humphries leads Olympic monobob at Beijing 2022 after two runs

Kaillie Humphries has taken control in the first ever Olympic women's monobob competition at the Beijing 2022 Winter Games.

The American has over a second lead after heats one and two on Sunday 13 February, and is poised to seize a historic maiden gold medal in the one-woman sled.

The closest to Humphries is Canada's Christine de Bruin who's +1:04 seconds behind, and German flyer Laura Nolte who's clocked in +1:22 seconds off the pace set by Humphries.

The leader won two bobsleigh gold medals for Canada before switching allegiances to the USA in 2019, and was the favourite for many coming into the competition.

She has been one of the loudest voices in calling for a second women's bobsleigh event at the Olympic Winter Games and spoke to Olympics.com after a good day on Sunday:

"I’m super excited with it," she said.

"I would have liked to see four man just to see more participation from women worldwide – it doubles our numbers having four man vs just mono - but at the end of the day this is increasing participation worldwide.

We’re seeing new countries here – Ukraine’s the Dutch, countries that we’re not used to seeing and there’s less of a financial constraint on the federations in order to do it which again globally increases participation and allows people which wouldn’t normally have the chance to do bobsled.

"I hope the sport continues to grow and we see men doing mono and women doing four man and that we can all of us do all three events in future.

"But to know that women before me fought to even get the women’s two man into the Olympics and I fought so hard to get this new event… women after me long past I’m gone are going to be able to do at least these 2 events which is huge and hopefully the sport will continue to grow.

"I’m excited to be here to be able to race in an event that I fought so hard to advocate for and that the federation listened, and we have an event!"

Humphries won the two-woman 2021 world championships alongside Lolo Jones, and with her experience is also one of the top tips in the two-woman event.

Elana Meyers Taylor, the USA's other monobob pilot, is also primed for a podium run tomorrow just a tenth of a second off Laura Nolte's combined time.

Kaillie Humphries on switching from Canada to the USA

There was no guarantee that Humphries' switch from Canada to the U.S. was going to be successful, but her passport came through just in time and she's delighted to be in Beijing

"It feels really great to know that I have a country that supports me and to know that I have an opportunity," she says.

"There was no guarantee I would get here. I knew when my career with Canada was over, I didn’t know what the future was going to entail.

"I had worked super hard.

"Trust me there was a lot of sleepless nights and tears shed so to have this opportunity to be able to be here is such a huge honor and as a competitor I’m always going to put my best foot forward, regardless of what country I’m competing for.

"But to compete for a country where I live, where I’ll raise my family, that I’m now a citizen of it feels absolutely amazing and it’s such a huge honour."

Kaillie Humphries: Driven

While Humphries doesn't have the strongest start in the field - 0.21 seconds behind teammate Meyers Taylor coming off the hill in Heat 1, 0.20 seconds behind in Heat 2, she makes up for it in superior driving skills.

And that makes a massive difference on a track as demanding as the purpose-built track at the Yanqing National Sliding Centre, known as 'The Flying Snow Dragon'.

At her fourth Olympics, Humphries was confident enough to forego the final training run before competition, she knew had it down.

Fastest on both Heat 1 and Heat 2, she looks gold-medal bound if she can keep this pace up for two more runs.

Laura Nolte: "It's cool that women have a second event now!

Germany's Laura Nolte was also all smiles at the women's monobob Olympic debut in Yanqing.

"It's cool that women have a second event now!" She tells Olympics.com.

"It’s very tricky to drive, we’re all not used to it, it’s fun to figure out how to drive it but it’s hard."

Nolte is no stranger to the one-woman sled, she won the first-ever Winter Youth Olympic Games women’s monobob gold medal in 2016 in Lillehammer, so what would it mean to win the first-ever Olympic Winter Games gold medal at Beijing 2022?

"It would be awesome, but Kaillie is doing a great job over there – she’s one second before us. It will be very hard to catch her but it’s not over yet so we’re going all in tomorrow again."

And how is her Olympic experience going?

"I’m definitely enjoying it – trading a lot of pins! Unfortunately due to COVID we don’t have that much contact with other athletes as we usually do but it’s still fun."

Monobob schedule at Beijing 2022 - What time is women's monobob?

After Heats 1 and 2 on Sunday, the final two runs will happen on Monday at the same time, beginning at 9:30am on Monday morning in Beijing.

How does the monobob scoring work?

All four runs are added together, and the fastest wins! Simple.

Schedule

(All times are in local time, UTC+8)

Monday 14 February

09:30 - Monobob heats 3 and 4

Where to watch women's monobob at Beijing 2022

From the Opening Ceremony to athlete action, here's where and how you can watch the Winter Games in your region via the Official Olympic Broadcast Partners.

Keep up with all the action in our Live Blog updates throughout Beijing 2022, here.