Who's Back
Germany's Mariama Jamanka, the gold medalist in the two-woman event alongside Lisa Buckwitz, also won the event at the 2019 World Championships. She is now partnered with Alexandra Burghardt. Meanwhile, Buckwitz earned two-woman gold at the 2022 European Championships alongside Kim Kalicki, a 24-year-old who will compete for the first time at the 2022 Winter Olympics.
American star Elana Meyers Taylor, a three-time Olympic medalist, qualified for the monobob and two-woman events. She took the 2019-20 season off and gave birth to her first child with fellow bobsledder Nic Taylor in early 2020, but returned to competition for the 2021-22 season. In June 2020, Meyers Taylor penned a first-person essay on TeamUSA.org detailing instances of racism she experienced in the sport, prompting USA Bobsled & Skeleton to launch an investigation. Meyers Taylor ranked first in both the monobob and two-woman competitions at the 2021-22 Bobsled World Cup. She tested positive for COVID shortly after arriving in Beijing.
Kaillie Humphries, the 2018 bronze medalist in the two-woman event for Canada, switched to representing the United States later that year because of abuse and harassment she alleges she faced within Canadian bobsledding. Her status for the 2022 Winter Games was in limbo as she awaited U.S. citizenship -- until Dec. 2, 2021, when she finally had her citizenship ceremony in San Diego, California. In the interim, she won three world titles: the two-woman event in 2020 and 2021, and the women's monobob debut in 2021. Humphries ranked second in the monobob standings and fifth in the two-woman at the most recent World Cup.
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Since tying for gold in the two-man competition in 2018, Canadian driver Justin Kripps picked up a silver medal in the two-man event at the 2019 World Championships and a bronze in the four-man.
German driver Francesco Friedrich has continued to clean up, winning gold in the two-man and four-man events at the 2019, 2020 and 2021 World Championships. Brakeman Thorsten Margis was a part of five of those events -- all but the two-man contest in 2021. Friedrich topped both two-man and four-man rankings at the 2021-22 Bobsled World Cup, though he wasn't always paired with Margis in the eight two-man races throughout the series.
SEE MORE: PyeongChang 2018: Germany's Friedrich sled ties for gold
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In addition to Meyers Taylor and Humphries, Brittany Reinbolt was selected as the third women's pilot on the 2021-22 U.S. National Team. While Reinbolt hasn't competed at an Olympics, she has been a top competitor for years, including a fifth-place finish at the 2019 World Championships.
Lauren Gibbs, who competed with Meyers Taylor in PyeongChang, won gold at the 2020 World Championships as the brakewoman for Humphries. She did not qualify for the upcoming Games and announced her retirement in January via Instagram.
