Kaillie Humphries

Early years Kaillie Simundson was born in Calgary to Ray Simundson, a financial planner, and Cheryl Simundson. At age 7, after handling the gold medal of an Olympic swimmer, she set a goal to win a gold medal herself. She took up ski racing and, at age 14, was named to the Canadian national development team. She attended the National Sport School in Calgary. She competed in alpine skiing until the age of 16, when she retired from the sport after breaking both legs in separate crashes. In 2002, she began her bobsled career as a brakewoman and was an alternate to the Canadian team at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino.

Bobsled career Simundson was initially low on the Canadian depth chart and considered representing the United Kingdom, the country of her then-fiancé, Dan Humphries, to compete at the 2006 Olympics. Opting to remain with the Canadian team, she gained a spot on the roster after signing up for a bobsled driving school. Following her marriage to Humphries in 2007, she changed her name to Kaillie Humphries.

At the 2010 Winter Olympics, Humphries won the gold medal in the two-woman competition with brakewoman Heather Moyse. The silver medal was won by fellow Canadians Shelley-Ann Brown and Helen Upperton. After the final run, Humphries said: "I don't think I can put it into words yet. We did our job, you know. The goal I set as a little kid, to have done it, is amazing."

After the 2010 Olympics, Humphries met with less success for nearly two seasons. She finished on the podium only once during the 2010–11 World Cup series, though her consistent top-10 finishes allowed her to finish in third place overall. She slid to fifth place overall in the 2011–12 World Cup series, though she did have four podium finishes, including three gold medals.

Humphries teamed up with brakewoman Emily Baadsvik and then brakewoman Jennifer Ciochetti for consecutive wins in the last two races of the 2011–12 World Cup. Humphries and Ciochetti also won the 2012 World Championship race in Lake Placid, marking the first gold for a Canadian women's bobsled team at the World Championships. When asked what the result meant on top of her Olympic gold, she said: "It feels amazing. It is another goal accomplished. This means a lot to me. I feel like I'm still growing as a pilot, and I try to learn from every experience. I have been working on my consistency, and I'm glad it showed here." In the team event, Humphries helped guide the Canadians to a bronze medal.

These three gold medals started a winning streak that would eventually break records for woman's bobsled competition.

Competitiveness Humphries, with new brakewoman Chelsea Valois, was the dominant pilot during the 2012–13 Bobsleigh World Cup season. The pair finished on the podium in all nine races that season, including a historic five straight wins from the start of the season. She finished on the podium in all 10 FIBT races during the 2012–13 season, and extended her consecutive FIBT podium finishes to 13 when counting the last two races of the 2011–12 World Cup season plus the 2012 FIBT World Championship race.

The 2013–14 World Cup season saw Humphries reunited with her Vancouver 2010 teammate, Heather Moyse. Humphries extended her podium streak to 15 with a win in the first race of the season and a silver in the second race—an unbroken run of 11 gold medals, 2 silver medals, and 2 bronze medals from the end of 2011–12 through the start of 2013–14. She traded podium positions with the American team of pilot Elana Meyers and brakewoman Lauryn Williams throughout the 2013–14 season and ultimately won her second consecutive World Cup season title.

The close contest between the Canadians and Americans carried into the 2014 Sochi Olympics. Meyers and Williams led by just over two-tenths of a second after Day 1 of competition—uncharacteristically beating Humphries and Moyse at their strong suit start times, though Humphries made fewer driving errors and produced cleaner runs. On the second day of competition, the Americans again won on starting pushes but made several driving errors on the technical course. Humphries' clean piloting propelled the Canadians from second place into the gold medal position, making them the first female bobsled team to repeat as Olympic champions and the first female Canadian Olympians to repeat as champions since speed skater Catriona Le May Doan. Humphries said of the achievement: "How do you describe achieving a dream? This is a four-year goal of ours. This has been something that we've done together. Winning gold is amazing, but walking away satisfied is better. After the third run, I knew that if we did the business, we could be on top."

Humphries received the 2014 Lou Marsh Award, given annually to Canada's top athlete.

Mixed-sex competitions After the Fédération Internationale de Bobsleigh et de Tobogganing announced that it would allow mixed-sex crews to compete in four-man bobsled, Humphries piloted a mixed-sex team to the bronze medal in the Canadian four-man bobsled championships on November 1, 2014, allowing her team to join crews led by Justin Kripps and Chris Spring as official Canadian entries on the international circuit.

On November 15, Humphries and Elana Meyers of the United States became the first women to compete with or against men in an international four-man bobsled competition, in the season-opening North American Cup race in Park City, Utah. Later the same month, Humphries and Meyers became the first women to win medals in international four-man bobsled competition when they finished second and third in a North American Cup race at the Calgary track.

On January 9, 2016, Humphries became the first woman to drive an all-female team against men in a four-person World Cup bobsled race; her teammates were Cynthia Appiah, Geneviève Thibault, and Melissa Lotholz.

An independent investigation by Hill Advisory Inc., which BCS hired, concluded in September 2019 that there was insufficient evidence to convict Hays, Le Bihan, or Storey. In September 2019, BCS granted Humphries' request to be released from the Canadian program, and she began to compete for the United States.

On July 15, 2021, Humphries received a decision from an SDRCC arbitrator, Robert P. Armstrong, with respect to her appeal of the investigation conducted by Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton. While Armstrong dismissed the alleged acts of punishment for having reported the harassment, he rejected the Hill investigation of the precipitating allegation and of the efficacy of how BCS handled the allegation; he ordered an independent investigation through the SDRCC. He concluded “that the investigation of Mr. Hill was neither thorough nor reasonable. As a result, the decision of the board of BCS to accept the report cannot stand. ... Mr. Hill simply makes conclusive statements without any sufficient analysis to support his conclusion." The second, independent, investigation was submitted to BCS in 2023, which the BCS stated showed "no evidence that the allegations constituted harassment or discrimination", and it also found no fault in how the organization handled the complaint.

Humphries represented the United States at the 2022 Winter Olympics and won a gold medal in the monobob event, and finished in seventh place in the two-woman event with brakewoman Kaysha Love. That gold medal win meant she was the first woman in Olympic history to win gold medals for two different countries (United States and Canada), and the first person to win Olympic gold medals for America and Canada. They divorced before the 2014 Olympics.

Humphries married American bobsledder Travis Armbruster in 2019. After giving birth in 2024, Humphries described her greater level of confidence in "Who I am as a Woman".

Activism Humphries is affiliated with the "I've Been Bullied" campaign; Right to Play, a sports program for underprivileged youth; and the Special Olympics. In April 2011, through Right to Play, she and Canadian gymnast Kyle Shewfelt traveled to Liberia to set up sports programs for underprivileged children. She has also spoken at elementary schools in Calgary about the importance of physical activity, setting goals, and avoiding drugs.

Politics In February 2026, she stated that she is a Republican and supports President Trump's agenda of banning transgender from competing in women's sports. In March 2026, Humphries presented her Order of Ikkos medallion to President Trump at a White House event for Women's History Month. She said, "Every Olympic medalist in the United States gets an Order of Ikkos that they get to hand to somebody in honor and recognition of somebody who's made a meaningful contribution to their journey to the podium, because Olympic medals are never achieved alone… I am here today, and I'm so honored to present this, my Order of Ikkos medal to you, Donald Trump," and adding, "I want to recognize the support and the impact you've had on women's sports… specifically standing up to keep biological women in women's sports, to keep the field of play safe and allow for fair competition."

Career highlights Source:

Europa Cup 2006/2007 – Europa Cup, Champion

World Junior Championship 2006 – Silver medalist,