Interview: Kaillie Humphries, Bobsledding Legend on Overcoming Emotional Abuse from a Coach

Jessica Luther interviews bobsledding legend Kaillie Humphries about her career, training and competing in the time of COVID, and the fallout from her reporting emotional and mental abuse by her former head coach when she was on Team Canada. This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Weldon is our social media and website specialist. Burn It All Down is part of the Blue Wire podcast network.

Transcript

Jessica: Welcome to Burn It All Down, the feminist sports podcast you need. Jessica here. This week I talk with Kaillie Humphries, a bobsledding legend. She won the gold medal in the two-woman bobsled for Canada at the 2010 and the 2014 Olympics. Prior to the 2018/19 season, Humphries came forward about the harassment she faced from the governing body of professional Canadian bobsledding and specifically her coach, Todd Hayes. She filed a lawsuit to be released from Canada’s national team last September and has now joined Team USA. Recently at the world championships in Germany, in representing the US, she won both the one-woman – known as the monobob – and the two-woman bobsledding crowns. She will be competing in the Olympics with the US team for the first time in 2022 – that's next year. But let me let her tell you who she is. 

Kaillie: My name is Kaillie Humphries, I am a 3 time Olympic medalist, 5 time world champion in the sport of women’s bobsled.

Jessica: Okay, so, I wanted to start with: is it bobsledding or bobsleighing?

Kaillie: So, it depends on the context. The actual sled is called a bobsled, but the official sport term is called bobsleigh. I participate in bobsleigh.

Jessica: So, all my notes here in front of me that say bobsledding should be bobsleighing?

Kaillie: Uh…

Jessica: [laughs] Okay, okay.

Kaillie: It doesn't really matter. We’re good. Do whatever, as long as you’re referencing the sport, sounds good! I also found that in America everything is just bobsled/bobsledding but in Europe everything is bobsleigh. So, doesn’t matter. Potayto, potahto. Tomayto, tomahto. It’s fine.

Jessica: I was reading a piece by my co-host, Shireen Ahmed – she wrote about you for The Guardian a couple of years ago, and it was all “bobsleigh” and I was like, oh no! 

Kaillie: [laughs] We’re not super picky with it.

Jessica: [laughs] I got all nervous about it. 

Kaillie: It's all good either way. 

Jessica: Okay. So, how did you get into the sport of bobsleigh? 

Kaillie: So, I got into it…Where I grew up in Canada, in Calgary, was we had the bobsled track which was the track from the ’88 Olympics.

Jessica: Ah, of course.

Kaillie: The Jamaican bobsled Cool Runnings track. 

Jessica: Oh, nice.

Kaillie: So, it kind of was in my backyard – not literally, but hometown. I knew of this sport and I'd always wanted to go to the Olympics since I was a little kid, and I grew up ski racing in the mountains and I realized at some point it just wasn’t gonna happen and that sport wasn’t for me, I was never gonna go to the Games. And I’ve always been very strong for a female, I've always had really big legs, and I thought, well, obviously figure skating is not gonna be my passion, just body type’s not gonna suit it. [Jessica laughs] So, what could I do? And training, seeing the bobsled track and understanding a bit about the sport…Those are strong, very powerful females that are very focused, very driven – as are tons of other sports, but that really suited, everything that I had seen, suited my personality, my body type. I thought maybe I could be good. So, I just went online and looked up a TalentID camp and had the courage to go and try out, and then three years later I made the 2006 Olympic team and everything’s just kind of fallen in place since then. 

Jessica: Wow. So, what do think makes you so good at this? Is it just that you have big legs? I mean, you are a phenomenal bobsleigher.

Kaillie: Thanks! I think there’s a couple of different aspects. I actually think a lot of my ski racing background and a lot of the sports that I did as a kid growing up, because I did all different types of sports – that really has helped me be a better athlete as a whole. The skills that I developed in ski racing – having to look farther ahead, the speed portion of it, the feel of your feet underneath you although I’m not on my feet in bobsled I have to know and understand the feel of the sled on the ice. There’s a visual component, a feeling component. Things come at you so fast, having to make quick decisions and look far ahead. So, my track and field days, my one year in high school running track and field, you know, that transition to a lot of this speed that I got now, I’ve had to work super hard at it. So it hasn’t just come overnight, but a lot of the skills I had from doing all types of different sports as a kid growing up, I think, has definitely helped. It gave me a lot of invisible tools in my tool belt that I get to pull from.

I think there’s a lot of things that go into it. Some of it’s skills that I developed from sports, some of it’s just who I am as a person, and this sport fits my personality and my lifestyle. It allows me to be really intense, it allows me to take my energy and focus, which is what I’ve always loved about sport in general. I think that's why I’ve always felt comfortable in myself, I get to express myself by being an athlete. That’s where sport in general has always been my niche – it’s where I’ve felt safe, it’s where I had fun, it’s where I can feel complete as a person. And so bobsled is just an extension of that, and I think the sport itself and what it requires allows me to challenge myself, to push my limits, and it allows me to just be a strong, fierce female athlete.

Jessica: Yeah, which you are. So, please correct me if I'm wrong, but women currently compete in the two-person bobsled and then there’s a new event called the monobob – which I think is the most adorable name for a sporting event! Tell me what that is, and is that just a new event for women or are men doing the monobob…Have they been doing it or are they doing it now also?

Kaillie: It is just an event for women.

Jessica: Okay.

Kaillie: I hope one day the men get to do the monobob event, and I hope women get to do the four-man event. So, when I started in the sport in 2003, men competed in two events: they had the two-man event, two people, and then the four-man event with four people. Women have only ever had one event, we've only ever been able to participate in the two-man event. I always thought that was really wrong. I never understand why. I asked a lot of questions to a lot of people on that.

Jessica: [laughs] I bet they didn’t have good answers.  

Kaillie: Not ones that satisfied at all! “Women aren’t strong enough…Women aren’t fast enough…Women aren’t skilled enough at driving sleds…You don’t have enough experience…You don’t have the numbers.” Just the list that goes on and on with that. It doesn’t make sense, and it didn't seem fair to me, you know? Men get to challenge themselves, they get to increase participation, they get to win double the amount of medals every single week including at world championships and at the Olympic Games, and women have one shot in the same sport. I’m like, this doesn’t make sense! I don’t believe all those rules. I feel like I’m skilled enough, I think I’m strong enough and I'm fast enough and I want the opportunity to push my limits and be better. I wanna challenge myself and grow as an athlete. I wanna win more medals for my country.

So, in 2015 our international federation allowed women to compete in the four-man event, so for a year I took a male crew with myself, competed against the men with a men’s crew. The following year I took an all-female crew, and we competed against the guys in the event to show women wanna do it, we're able to do it, we can participate in this event, we’re badass and fierce enough to do it. Then the following year they introduced, right after the 2018 Olympics, the notion of this new event called monobob. It’s supposed to help bring a lot of other women from other countries that don’t necessarily have females competing in the two-man event and allow more access to the sport.

Jessica: Because it's a solo, so you just need yourself and a sled.

Kaillie: It is a solo, yeah. So I have to push a sled by myself and jump in and drive down. But the hard part about it is you can't do it by yourself – I need a teammate at the top to help me, the sled's extremely heavy still, and I need a teammate at the bottom to help me pull the sled off the bobsled track. So we really do require...It is a team effort, hugely, from coaches to sled technicians to my other teammates. My two-man teammates were my coaches, they’re helping me with push technique, all the breakmen that have spent years learning how to push from the back, and now that's my job. They’ve had to really step up and coach me and do a bit more. They're helping with the equipment portion and just overall helping with monobob. So, it definitely is a one person event, can’t be done alone though. But it did get added, I wanna say in 2019, it got added to the Olympics, which is huge. 

So now women have equal medal opportunity in our sport. We’ve got two chances to win two medals, and it is a women’s-only event for right now but like I said I hope one day that the men are gonna be able to utilize that, that we’ll be able to do four men, and we'll have three events for all the athletes no matter what gender. That’s my goal. I don’t know if I'll see that in my lifetime competing, but being able to fight for something – more equality in medal opportunities, and then get to participate in an event that I fought so hard for was huge – let alone be able to win, was a culmination of kind of everything coming full circle. But it’s a super fun event and it is really cool and I’m really happy and honored and proud to be able to know I fought for something, but that women are one step closer towards equality in our sport. 

Jessica: Yeah, and you’re recently back from Germany where you did the world bobsled championships. Are you the very first monobob champion?

Kaillie: I am the very first monobob world champion.

Jessica: Yes!

Kaillie: This year was the first year we had world championships for monobob.

Jessica: But you're also the champion in the two-person event as well, yes?

Kaillie: Correct, yes.

Jessica: And you’re partner is Lolo Jones, who is the former American Olympic hurdler, and I read that she had to end it, her bobsledding career, and then you contacted her. How did that partnership come about? 

Kaillie: That’s correct, yeah. I’ve always known of Lolo, I met Lolo going into the 2014 Olympics when she was Team USA, I was Team Canada. I competed with a competitor of hers in hurdles, Phylicia George was my teammate in 2018, and she did hurdles at the Olympics against Lolo. 

Jessica: Huh!

Kaillie: So, kind of that whole mix…We knew each other, had friends in common, had a bunch of stuff going on together. But I always admired her fierceness, her intensity, her focus. She’s a badass athlete herself and she's won a lot in track and field, and I did know that she was focusing on trying to go to Tokyo and get back into the hurdles and the Olympics, and then when Tokyo got postponed I thought this this is an opportunity. I'll reach out, see where she's at, see if she’d even consider coming back to bobsled. Thankfully for me she said yes, [Jessica laughs] she would consider it. 

Jessica: And now you’re world champions!

Kaillie: Now we’re world champions, out of the harshness that COVID kind of postponed their Olympics, the Summer Olympics, which I know is extremely difficult as an athlete to have to deal with. I mostly just wanted to provide an opportunity for myself and for her and I was grateful that she was willing to trust me, to trust our team, and it paid off. So, it was a good choice for both of us. 

Jessica: Absolutely. So, Beijing 2022 is actually right around the corner – we’re less than a year out. I was wondering, how are you preparing for it during quarantine? How are you getting ready physically? But also I’m wondering about the mental side of this, like, it’s not clear whether or not it’s going to be postponed and sort of how you get ready when everything’s sort of up in the air like this?

Kaillie: Yeah. We kind of had a trial run this year. This year, not knowing if we were gonna be able to compete or not, and last summer being right when COVID hit at the harshest time, you know, everything shut down for a long time. I learned a lot. Did I do it perfectly? No. Did I prepare for this year the best? No, not ideal. But the game changed and we had to adapt, I had to pivot as an athlete. I think for a lot of athletes it’s hard to do, especially when you have for years, for eight, twelve years, you’ve had this plan in your mind, you spend a long time figuring out how much sleep you need, how much rest you need, on what days you’re training, where you're training, your training partners, what equipment you’ve got, you show up at the track, you’ve got schedules – and COVID changed all of that for everybody. Do you have races? Do you not? Days off, getting COVID tests once every four days – what happens? Can you travel, going over to Europe? Is that even possible?

So, there were so many questions. We really had to learn how to roll with the punches, we really had to adapt to an ever-changing world and how it was gonna look. We learned a lot this year, myself and the team, and so that's gonna help us a lot going into next year, still knowing that next year will change a lot too. I’m smart enough to know COVID is ever-changing this world and I don’t think it'll ever go back to the way it was, but I’m hopeful that it goes back a little bit at some point. [laughter] 

Jessica: Yes.

Kaillie: Yeah, it’ll be what it is. So we’re really having to adapt and change. I started setting up a home garage gym, so that’ll help a lot just understanding that if gyms shut down, if things aren’t open, facilities, I still have access to be able to weight train in the summer. I can sprint up and down my street, I’ve got a little push-cart that my husband made for me that I can push on wheels up and down right outside our house. So I’ve got access to everything that I could possibly need, and so I think that feels nice to know that I can still get the very basics of what I have to do to perform, if and when Beijing happens on time. I have no doubt it’s going to and I’m going to go forth with the mindset that nothing’s changing.

I have to adapt to the changing world and find news ways of getting things that I want and things that I need in order to continue to do the best, but at the same point if I show up and the Olympics happens, someone’s winning medals. So I’m gonna prepare and plan for that to be me, and if I’ve done that and at the last minute it doesn't happen, well, I did the best that I could. It's gonna be out of my control. But the worst case scenario is gonna be if it happens and I didn't think it was going to and I didn’t prepare properly. So, I’d rather put in more work, I’d rather do much more and plan and prepare as if nothing’s gonna change and just adapt my training environment around that, and then the rest is up to a lot of other people that I don't have any control over. So right now I’m just staying focused on it happening and being the best athlete I can be so that I can hopefully try and win some medals at the Games. 

Jessica: I have to chuckle a little bit at you saying you didn’t do it perfectly, and wondering what your competitors think when they hear that after your sweep. [laughs] 

Kaillie: Of course – at the same point though, I’m sure for them it's the same thing too, d’you know what I meant? It’s always easier to push back and go, “Ugh, what if I would’ve done this…Or this…” Our world cup season, I didn’t win every race going into world champs. It literally was a learning process right up until world championships, and so some of those races…I learned a lot throughout that process and that's what made world championships possible, and that is a big part as to why I won. But it was a battle to even get those four races until worlds. So, I adapt quickly, I’ve learned a lot throughout my sporting career and myself, physically and mentally, and so I'm able to do that. At the same point I've got a great team and a great support system that allow me to be able to just focus on being an athlete. But I don’t think a single person has gone through this year, athlete or no athlete, there’s not a single person I know that hasn't gone, “What in the heck is going on now? What am I supposed to do? How do I adjust? How do I pivot?” These are real life challenges and changes, and I don’t think there's a single person that said, “I dealt with COVID perfectly.”

Jessica: No. [laughs] 

Kaillie: You know, everything’s gone off. There’s nobody.

Jessica: Right. 

Kaillie: I would like to tell you that I did, but I know that I didn’t. My husband can probably say the same thing. [Jessica laughs] Yeah, I got super stressed out, you know? There were days I was not motivated at all, didn’t train. I know physical performance dropped off a bit just in me learning how to change to my environment. I’m used to a high-performance facility, I’m used to training camps, I’m used to therapy all the time, and proper nutrition. Then you go to, like, you don't have a full-time job. We live in California, things are expensive. Groceries aren't the same. I’m not getting therapy to the same extent. Gyms are shut down, I’m training on the street. It just drastically changes, and things worked out, but it doesn't mean that I can't do them better moving forward and that will only increase my chances of having the ultimate success at the Games, so I'm confident in that. I know it's possible, but I know I’m still gonna have to work super hard. It's not fair for anybody around the world at all, so it’s literally just gonna be who can do the best job in the current climate. 

Jessica: I wanna shift gears a little bit. So, you spent more of your career with Team Canada, which was both fruitful for you in that you won two Olympic gold medals, but it was also fraught in that, as you've said, you were verbally and mentally abused by the team's head coach. You petitioned to be released from Team Canada, which was eventually granted, and you actually now compete for Team USA. Looking back, in what ways was your athletic performance affected by the abuse that you suffered? 

Kaillie: A lot of the environment that I felt very unsafe in and the abuse that I felt I suffered, it ended up being manifested…I was clinically diagnosed with depression, but rashes, hives all over, headaches, loss of vision, I wasn’t sleeping, lack of motivation to even leave the house for days on end – things that I’m not used to having or seeing. Just…there was a lot of health issues going on, and I knew everything wasn’t right mentally and physically. I knew that there was a major issue, and when I brought it forward it was kind of, “Well, you’re on your own.” So it took time. I enlisted the help of a lot of professionals, some sports psychologists, a lot of doctors did some scans to try to figure out what and how I was feeling the way that I was feeling, and inevitably I felt unsafe in my environment and nothing was gonna change moving forward, which is why I asked to be released.

The team now that I'm a part of, Team USA, is awesome. As hard as that transition was – and it was, it didn’t come lightly, it wasn't something I just woke up and said, “Hey, this is great.” It was an entire two year process. It was something that my husband can attest took time, money, energy, effort, completely wiped us out, and we’ve had to start again. So, looking back…Life, so unpredictable. But I couldn’t live with myself, I couldn’t stay, nor did I feel safe in the environment that I was in, and one that I once had success in. So, it doesn’t change my past, but I can continue to look and push forward. I think being an athlete has taught me you can’t dwell on things that have happened. I've learned from it, I wasn’t gonna continue in an environment I didn’t feel safe in, and I had an option and I’m lucky that Team USA accepted me – and I had to work hard for that too, I wasn't just granted a position, I had to learn my spot light any other athlete from any other scenario. Bought a bobsled, made the team, and it’s been a continual process.

But the coaching staff, I feel so valued and respected and appreciated. I feel safe to communicate and be in my environment, and I’m free to be who I am and to express my feelings and what I think, and throughout that I hope to grow the US program now. M y career, it’ll end in the US. I don’t know when – hopefully not for a minute, [Jessica laughs] so I’ll be able to end my career and move forward in an environment that I feel is productive and safe and healthy for me to be in, mentally and physically.

Jessica: Yeah, I think a lot of people don't understand the physical part of that kind of abuse – so, even if the abuse itself isn’t physical, that it can just really wear and tear on your body as much as on your mind. 

Kaillie: And it manifests in other ways, in things like continual headaches daily, and you’re like, “What is happening? I’m not used to this.” It's not just migraines, you know. You can take a bottle of Advil and it’s not going away. Stress manifests in physical aspects too. I wasn’t used to that, that was a learning process for me to fully understand, and to fully understand the claims that I made and what they mean as well. I don't take them lightly, it's not something I just go, “Hey, this is what I think…” There was a research process to it, there was working with specialists in that field, working with sports psychologists. It was taking a lot of written tests, talking to a lot of doctors to understand exactly what was manifesting and why and where it came from and what I was gonna do to stop it, prevent it. Medications, future plans, stuff that I still am dealing with and going through.

So, it's not just mental, for sure. There is a physical component, and it was the physical component that made me realize there was something wrong mentally. They physical side was easier to identify for me, especially as an athlete I’m very in tune with my body and if something doesn't feel right – and I’ve spent an entire career, 18 years understanding how to be bigger, better, faster, stronger – I know what I feel, why I feel, how I feel the way that I do. So, when the physical stuff started to happen I was like, oh…This is really bad now, and I need some help, and this isn’t just something that I’m sad one day over something that isn’t just right for a moment. This is a year-long process of what I felt was abuse and harassment, and it took a toll, for sure.

But I’m coming out on the other side, which is awesome, and I think my success with Team USA proves that nothing’s ever final and that at the end of the day we should all feel empowered to be safe and to feel confident in the environments that we're in, and we all have that power to choose that. And for me it was walking away from a career that I had built up, not knowing what the future was gonna hold, but now looking towards building up a new career in a country that I am so proud to represent.

Jessica: What were some of the reactions? I was wondering about what kind of things you heard after you came forward. 

Kaillie: Oh, everything. The amount of names that got called…And still if you Google my name it’ll be hero or traitor. I still get, probably every day or every second day I’ll get a bunch of people online on social media that’ll call me a traitor, a backstabber…

Jessica: I guess, Canadians say that?

Kaillie: Oh, yes.

Jessica: I heard they were nice.

Kaillie: No, full-on Canadians, for sure. People that just feel hurt by the decision, and I understand it. People that don’t understand my situation though. People that I’m hoping never have to experience or feel unsafe in their environments at all, but people that aren’t me, that don't understand. I used to take it very personally, I used to get really upset trying to defend myself too.

Jessica: Yeah, of course. 

Kaillie: I used to feel like I had to put on display my actions and why I did why I did and try and justify coming out and saying something, and at the end of the day I’ve now realized I have to live my life. I have to do what I feel is right for myself and be a leader in the sport and be a leader and empower other athletes and other female athletes to speak their truths too, and to not be bullied by people in power. To not be bullied by anybody else and not put myself in an unsafe environment. So, it's taken a good two years to get to the point where I feel more empowered by the situation. It's taken removing myself completely from this situation to feel empowered 100%, to feel like I have control over my life now, to feel like I have control over my actions and what I say, and to feel like those have value to somebody else, to know that I’m right, that I’m confident in my decisions. I second-guessed myself a lot for years on, “Are these the right calls? What am I doing? How should I act? What should I do? How do I say…I’m scared of saying or doing anything that’s gonna elicit a reaction.”

So, to know now that I can be free, I can be myself, and what I think is accurate – it does get results. I do know what I’m doing, and that my skillset and what I’ve learned as an athlete and as a female are right, and that they’re valued and that they’re appreciated is huge. But it took removing an environment, it took being around the right group of people, 100%; putting myself around people that understand the situation but appreciate me for me; and it took starting again. It doesn’t happen overnight, for sure, but I’m so happy that I’m in the position that I'm in now and that it didn’t end up breaking me completely and that I have a newfound lease on sport and a career and will continue to move forward to the best of my ability. 

Jessica: I’m wondering what advice you would give to an athlete who is experiencing, has experienced, thinks they're experiencing some kind of abuse and they wanna come forward and talk about it publicly. What have you learned through all of this that you would wanna tell them before they make that choice?

Kaillie: Surround yourself with people that love and care for you as a person. I guess I underestimated how hard the process was gonna actually be, and not from necessarily making the claim, not from what I felt – because I always felt that it was the right deacon, that it was the best thing for me and for other athletes on Team Canada and for future females across the board. So, I never doubted my decision, but I didn't realize that all the name-calling, all the backlash…I pride myself on being a strong, powerful individual mentally and physically and not caring what other people thought. But when you get it every day, time and time again, the hate and the hurt and the misunderstanding from a lot of people and you feel like you have to defend yourself and you're on defense all the time in every aspect of your life because it does consume you and you lack energy to get up and make meals or do certain stuff, and then the attacks keep coming.

It takes a toll, and if it wasn’t for family, friends, for the people that stood by me and were gonna support me no matter what, that believed in me and what I said and they were a part of me going through all of it, that I was gonna come out okay either way know that. If you’re gonna make the claim: do it, 100%. Be aware that coaches, federations have power and that you have to really be ready for just about anything. All the things that could happen did happen, whether it’s they take coaching away, they take training environments away, they turn teammates against you, they take your funding, your sponsorships. Any and everything they can use and they do use and hold over athletes in abusive positions will get used. The fears of what can happen are probably gonna come true, but it's gonna be the people that you surround yourself with and the powerful people that believe you no matter what are gonna be the reason why you come out on the other side, even if it ends your career, which I had to accept, that chances are it was going to…And it did, it ended my career with Team Canada.

I knew I was going to be okay. I knew that even if sport was done I was gonna survive this, I was gonna get through it, life was gonna move on. I had a plan for what was gonna happen if sport was to end altogether by making a claim, but I also knew I couldn’t stay silent. I also knew that I couldn’t live with myself and just accept it and not try to make a difference. So, if that’s a position you feel yourself in, do it. I will stand behind you 100%, and I think far too often too many athletes are silenced and threaten and put in positions…We’re very vulnerable, all athletes are. Your hopes and dreams are built around coaches and directors and CEO that make the Olympic teams, you know? Whether you're teammates, whether you get equipment, whether you get therapy, funding, everything – all of that is up to other people.

I would like to say performance is enough. I had all the performance in the world and it wasn't enough. So, it doesn’t matter if you’re the best of the best or you’re the bottom. It makes no difference, you’re susceptible nonetheless – verbal, physical, mental, sexual, it doesn’t matter. Abuse can happen if you’re in the wrong hands. And so, if you feel that’s the case, don’t stay silent. Definitely speak up, but more importantly surround yourself with people that love, cherish, believe in you as a whole, and that regardless what the outcome is just kind of be ready for anything, and the people you surround yourself with are gonna get you through it. 

Jessica: What do you think needs to change within bobsledding or maybe Olympic sport or maybe sport in general to help mitigate this kind of abuse, and maybe even the reaction that you get to reporting this kind of abuse? 

Kaillie: I think we need a third party investigative agency, department, some kind of third party accounting. In certain scenarios a lot of federations are allowed to police themselves, they’re allowed to hold themselves accountable. “We’re gonna do what we think is right” – which inevitably just will separate athletes vs coaching staff or the leadership, which makes athletes in general so vulnerable. So, I think having a third party reporting center where athletes can report and be kept safe…Although you’re not allowed to punish, but it still happens, let me tell you. It can and it will. There need to be checks and balances, there needs to be an agency that when an athlete makes a claim they do all the investigations and they can’t be bought or sold or they don't have any ties to the leadership.

I think that’ll keep the federation safer as well. I think that'll be better for the federation to know that it’s not up to them. If an athlete makes a claim they don’t have to defend themselves or prove it. This agency will find the root of the problem, it’ll find the truth and it will keep everybody in a positive, safe environment. Coaches’ll be free to act accordingly and that we’re all held accountable to our actions, and unfortunately federations, coaches, they have stake in the game. They have funding, they get their money from the sponsors and Sport Canada, how the results of the athletes…You know, that affects that funding partner and their job. Then you’ve got the athletes trying to make the teams and you need somebody that's going to be able to police it all and hold everybody accountable that has no stake in the game at all, that doesn’t matter, that’s just about finding the truth.

I think when you get that and that agency or that company or whatever it is exists, and that there's buy-in, that all the federations in Canada or the US buy in to this agency being a third party, having no stake and the athletes buy in and they feel safe. I think that’s how you’ll get a lot more transparency, a lot greater communication, and I think that it will increase the safety of the athletes and of the coaches and the federation to know that everybody's accountable for their actions. 

Jessica: I really appreciate you talking about all that. I know that that’s a shitty thing, to have to do that over and over again.

Kaillie: It is, but the more that I do it, realistically it becomes easier.

Jessica: Okay.

Kaillie: Hiding, I think, is the worst thing, because when a question does come up it elicits a reaction, and I don't like the reaction that I get, that my body naturally just does in certain scenarios. So, the more I can talk about it it feels more empowering and it kind of desensitizes me to what happened – being around certain people, just thinking about scenarios, which makes me a stronger person.

Jessica: I didn’t even think about this until right now, but do you see Todd Hayes when you go to competitions? 

Kaillie: Oh yeah.

Jessica: That’s still part of your sport.

Kaillie: He’s there at the top of races.

Jessica: I didn’t even think about that until right now.

Kaillie: It’s still very much a part of my sport. I see him on track walks, in training scenarios. I’ve been fortunate that they haven’t been at any of our hotels, but sometimes Canada and US will stay at the same hotels on tour so you see him at meals, you see them just hanging out.

Jessica: Wow. I hadn’t even considered that as part of your experience with this. Wow.

Kaillie: Yeah. So, it makes it very very challenging. It's a continuous challenge for sure, because as much as I’ve left it's still very much in my face and it still elicits that response almost every day on tour. This is where when I say you need your people around you. So, I've been able to remove myself. My team and my teammates support me in this environment and they know and they’re very much aware of everything, so they can empower me at times when I don’t necessarily feel that way, and their willingness to kind of protect and to keep me safe, and just know that we focus on my performance, we focus on what I’m trying to achieve on the bobsled track that even when Team Canada or Todd or other people are around I look the other way, I focus on my stuff, my teammates will redirect attention when I start to go down a certain direction or path. So, I really have relied on them a lot. Then being able to remove myself completely knowing that I’m not in that environment anymore and continuously telling myself on a daily basis that that's the case, that self-talk, that has helped a lot too.

Jessica: So, I don’t wanna end on that, I wanna ask you just two more questions. I was wondering what your favorite sport to watch or to do that is not bobsled?

Kaillie: My favorite sport to watch…I like watching gymnastics.

Jessica: Oh yeah!

Kaillie: I like watching beach volleyball, figure skating, curling, and hockey. I know that’s uber-Canadian.

Jessica: That’s very Canadian of you, yes.

Kaillie: [laughs] But at the Games one of the only events if not the only event that I usually end up going to watch are the women's hockey games, and if I was to do any other sport in the Olympics it would be rowing.

Jessica: Oh! Okay.

Kaillie: It would be super cool to do rowing.

Jessica: You got those legs.

Kaillie: Right? They’re big, strong, powerful women. But I tried rowing once and it is WAY harder than it looks. WAY harder.

Jessica: Oh, I believe that. 

Kaillie: I couldn’t stay in the boat for longer than one second. So, rowing’s not for me. Plus I'm too short. But I love the sport, it always just looks so cool.

Jessica: Yeah, it really does. It’s so calming to watch all those people work together.

Kaillie: Right? There’s a power and a gracefulness all together. 

Jessica: So, when you need to unwind or recover, what kind of things do you enjoy doing? Or maybe I guess the way to ask this is what do you do for self-care?

Kaillie: I watch a lot of movies.

Jessica: Okay.

Kaillie: I also enjoy…I’m not artistic, let’s start there. But I enjoy art projects. I like coloring and coloring books, I enjoy macrame or knitting, things that are very simple and can be repetitive, but I get to focus intently on it. Painting, pottery – though I usually end up having to trace things on and then just color within the lines. But painting, pottery and stuff like that I really really enjoy too.

Jessica: That’s lovely, that tactile kind of repetitive stuff. I understand that. Well, thank you so much for you time, Kaillie. We really appreciate it. Everybody here at Burn It All Down is cheering you on. Good luck in the run up to 2022 and the Olympics!

Kaillie: Thank you very much. Thank you for letting me tell my story too, and I appreciate it.