IBSF World Championships

The 2021 International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation (IBSF) World Championships were held in Altenberg, Germany last week. Originally scheduled to be held in Lake Placid, New York, the competition was moved to its 2020 host because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A number of athletes were familiar with the Altenberg track, including American Kaillie Humphries, the defending champion of the two-woman bobsleigh from the 2020 IBSF World Championships. After two runs, Humphries and teammate Lolo Jones found themselves leading by just over a third of a second. While their run three time was third overall, their lead, coupled with a very strong run four, secured Humphries and Jones the gold in two-woman bobsleigh — Humphries’ fourth gold and her second in two years, won on the same track.

Humphries then added to her medal collection in the women’s monobob (single-person bobsleigh) — the event debuting for the first time at a World Championships. Although she started with a fourth-place run one, three successive table-topping runs gave her a fifth gold medal, ahead of her closest competitor by half a second and the only athlete in the competition to total a time of fewer than four minutes.

Having become the first woman to win four World Championships (and then quickly topping it with a fifth), Humphries will likely look to tie the record for the most Olympic medals won by an individual bobsled athlete in the 2022 Beijing Winter Games.