Bobsled, one of the oldest sports at the Winter Olympics, returns to the 2026 Milano Cortina Games and will showcase athletes with nerves of steel as they steer a high-tech sled down a fast, icy track with multiple turns.
Veteran U.S. bobsledders Kaillie Humphries and Elana Meyers Taylor are set to make their fifth appearance at the Winter Games and are heavy favorites to podium. Humphries and Meyers Taylor finished first and second respectively in the inaugural women’s monobob event at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
Bobsled includes a total of four events, which will be contested at the Cortina Sliding Centre in Cortina d’Ampezzo.
When did bobsled become a Winter Olympic sport?
Bobsled has been part of the Winter Olympics since the inaugural 1924 Chamonix Winter Games, although it wasn’t contested in Squaw Valley in 1960 to cut down expenses by not building a bobsled track. The two-man event was added to the program at the 1932 Lake Placid Winter Games and the two-woman race made its Olympic debut in Salt Lake in 2002. The Olympic women’s monobob was first held at the 2022 Games in Beijing.
How does Olympic bobsled work?
Each sled has one driver, while others push the sled from the starting gate before jumping into the back of the sled for the rest of the ride. Bobsled events each last two days, with two runs each day. The fastest combined time determines the winner. Men and women each compete in their own events:
Men
- 4-man bobsled: One driver and three pushers in each sled
- 2-man bobsled: One driver and one pusher in each sled
Women
- 2-women bobsled: One driver and one pusher in each sled
- Monobob: One driver, no pushers
Top Team USA athletes
- Kaillie Humphries: The 40-year-old pilot won gold for the U.S. in monobob at the 2022 Beijing Games and also won gold in two-man in 2014 and 2010 while representing Canada. She joined short-track speedskater Viktor Ahn as the only Winter Olympians to win gold for different countries. Milano Cortina marks her fifth Games and first as a mother after giving birth to son Aulden in June 2024.
- Elana Meyers Taylor: The 41-year-old pilot/brakeman enters Milano Cortina, her fifth Winter Games, with five Olympic medals, including three silvers and two bronzes. She earned a silver medal in the inaugural women’s monobob at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and a bronze in the two-woman bobsled race with Sylvia Hoffman to become the most decorated Black athlete in Winter Olympics history.
- Kaysha Love: The up-and-coming bobsledder won gold in women’s monobob at the 2025 IBSF World Championships. Love, 28, made her Olympic debut at the 2022 Beijing Winter Games, less than two years after beginning bobsled following a track and field career at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
International landscape
German bobsledder Francesco Friedrich is in pursuit of a record fifth gold medal. His four gold medals are tied for the most in the sport after winning the two-man and four-man event in Pyeongchang in 2018 and Beijing in 2022. Milano Cortina will mark his fourth Winter Games. Germany’s Laura Nolte is also a top contender after winning gold in the two-woman bobsleigh in 2022 in Beijing.
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