Three years ago, converted track sprinter Kaysha Love became an Olympian as a brakewoman in the back of a bobsled. Now she’s a world champion driver.
Love won the monobob at the World Championships in Lake Placid, New York, becoming the fourth American pilot to win a world title in the last 65 years.
Love prevailed by 44 hundredths of a second over German Laure Nolte combining times from four runs over Saturday and Sunday.
“I have no words,” Love said shortly after getting out of her sled and off the track.
Elana Meyers Taylor earned bronze, five hundredths behind Nolte. Meyers Taylor, a 40-year-old mom of two, earned an eighth career world medal between the monobob and two-woman events to go along with her five Olympic medals.
“Today took a lot out of me, and I’m just super excited,” said Meyers Taylor, who took world silver last year in her first season back after having her second son, Noah. “I’m super excited for Kaysha, excited to come away with a medal.”
After a strong World Cup season, Love confirmed that she will lead a deep U.S. team — also including Meyers Taylor and 2022 Olympic monobob champion Kaillie Humphries (eighth place Sunday returning from June childbirth) — into the 2025-26 Olympic season.
In 2020, Love was a senior on the UNLV track team.
“I was at track and field nationals. There was a bobsled coach that approached me and told me he thought I was in the wrong sport,” Love said last fall. “And I remember thinking like, ‘Dude, you’re crazy. How could I be in the wrong sport? Like, I’ve dedicated eight years to track and field.’ And he told me he thought I could possibly be an Olympian in bobsled if I gave it a try.”
Love took part in a virtual combine. She made the national team. Then, two months after her competition debut, she was named to the 2022 Olympic team as a push athlete, beating out three world championships medalists.
Love finished seventh at the Beijing Games as a brakewoman in Humphries’ sled, then made a common move to driving.
“I think had Beijing maybe gone a little bit more in our favor or gone a little bit different, I don’t know if I can truthfully say that I would have been continuing bobsled and especially continuing in the pilot role as well,” Love said in 2023, according to The Associated Press. “So, I’m very grateful for the way that shook out.”
She drove on the lower-level North American Cup in 2022-23 and was the last or next to last finisher in all six of her races.
“At this time a year ago, I was getting my (butt) handed to me by, like, everybody,” Love said before the start of the 2023-24 World Cup season, according to the AP. “My goal is to return to the Olympics. And I understand that it just takes more time to develop as a pilot than it does as a brakeman.”
Love proved a fast learner. In 2023-24, she won in her first World Cup race as a driver.
This season, she has been the top American combining results in monobob and the two-woman event, including making the podium of her last four World Cup monobob starts going into worlds.
And on Sunday, she became the fourth American driver to win a world title since 1960 after Steven Holcomb, Meyers Taylor and Humphries.
Next weekend, she’ll get another chance in the two-woman event at worlds.
“I never would have thought that I’d be in this position so early in my career,” Love said Sunday. “Obviously, it’s a massive dream for, I think, every bobsledder.”
Earlier Sunday, four-time Olympic gold medalist Francesco Friedrich drove to a record-extending ninth world two-man title and led a German medals sweep for a second consecutive year.
Friedrich and Alexander Schüller’s sled prevailed by three hundredths over rival Johannes Lochner with Georg Fleischhauer, despite falling behind Lochner at intermediate split times in his fourth and final run.
It marked the second-closest of Friedrich’s record 15 world titles between two- and four-man events. Friedrich and Lochner tied for four-man gold in 2017.
Frank Del Duca and Charlie Volker were fourth, marking the best finish for a U.S. men’s bobsled at worlds since 2013, when Holcomb-driven sleds were third (four-man) and fourth (two-man).
NBC Sports’ Dan Meyer contributed to this report from Lake Placid.
