Kelsey Mitchell, rear, seen here racing in January with Melissa Lotholz, will join an elite club of athletes who have taken part in both Summer and Winter Olympics. Mitchell won a gold medal in track cycling in Tokyo in 2021 and will be part of the two-woman bobsleigh competition this year in Italy.Mayk Wendt/The Associated Press
When she lines up to race at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, Kelsey Mitchell will join an elite group of Canadian athletes who have competed in both the Summer and Winter Games.
The Olympic gold medalist in sprint track cycling traded the velodrome for the high-octane bobsleigh track just a few months ago, and she quickly pushed her way onto Canada’s Olympic team. Mitchell is now set to compete as a brakewoman in the two-woman bobsleigh event in Cortina.
That will thrust the 32-year-old into a club of Canadians only about a dozen strong, including Winter-Summer Olympians such as Clara Hughes, Georgia Simmerling and Hayley Wickenheiser.
The switch from cycling to bobsleigh has been fast but complex, going from Olympic champion at one sport to rookie in another. Mitchell went from her first push test in June, to her first time crewing in the bobsled at the Whistler Sliding Centre in October, her debut World Cup race in November, to being officially named to Canada’s Olympic team in January.
“It’s crazy … it doesn’t feel real,” said Mitchell by phone from Calgary after receiving her Canadian Olympic jacket on Jan. 23. “The team has been incredible, and I just honestly fell back in love with sport. It’s been a beautiful journey.”
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She has swapped an individual speed sport for a nerve-testing team one. As the second woman in the sled, Mitchell accelerates it with a massive five-second push off the start line and then jumps in behind the pilot and trusts her to navigate the icy track at speeds approaching 130 kilometres an hour. The ride is bumpy, the G-forces extreme, and the threat of crashing ever-present.
While cycling taxed Mitchell’s legs, bobsleigh takes more full-body strength. She added muscle to push the sled, and is adjusting to being in a weighted sport. The sled and crew must weigh in at the finish line to assure fairness among competitors. A two-woman sled and its athletes can’t exceed 331 kilograms.
The daily grind is different from cycling as well. When off their bikes, the cyclists rest their legs as much as possible, but the bobsledders rarely sit down. They’re busy maintaining, lifting and moving sleds, spending long hours in cold garages.
“There’s so much work to do on the sled. You’re polishing runners for hours,” said Mitchell from Lillehammer, one of the World Cup stops in December. “You’re standing on your feet. It’s opposite from what I’m used to.”
She raced behind various Canadian pilots throughout the World Cup season, competing against other athletes for the three brakewoman spots in the trio of two-women sleds Canada qualified for the Olympics.
Mitchell is surrounded on the team by like-minded mature second-chance athletes coming from other sports, such as track and field and football. It’s a move Mitchell tried to make more than a decade ago. But back then, she didn’t fit the bill.
At 21, then a university soccer player, Mitchell went to a bobsleigh talent identification camp in Calgary and tested at skills such as broad jump, medicine ball throw and sprint, but she lacked the speed or strength to intrigue bobsleigh coaches.
Then at 23, she participated in an RBC Training Ground camp in Toronto, which seeks to find and fund future Olympians for many Canadian sports. Again, Mitchell hoped bobsleigh coaches would see her potential. Instead, she intrigued Canada’s cycling team with her athletic testing, despite having little experience on a bike.
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Mitchell committed to cycling in 2017, eventually training with the national cycling program in Milton, and sprinted to a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
However, the 2024 Paris Olympics was a different story for her.
“The last two years leading into Paris, I was working harder than I ever have, and I was just getting slower,” said Mitchell, who finished eighth in Paris. “I was struggling with some injuries and not able to figure it out, and it mentally took a toll on me … wanting to defend my Olympic gold medal but not being able to.”
Soon after Paris, while trying to rehab some injuries and falling out of love with sport, she wanted a break from cycling. The Sherwood Park, Alta., native – who did everything growing up from gymnastics to soccer, judo, basketball, volleyball and ringette – sought something new again. She briefly trained with speed skaters in Calgary.
When the oval humbled her, Mitchell signed up for a bobsleigh tryout. That involved pushing a sled frame alone before bobsleigh coaches on a short starting area inside the ice house at Calgary’s WinSport, trying to show them that she had potential. Canada had begun developing some new brakewomen for its women’s sleds since the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022.
Mitchell reacts after winning gold in the women's track cycling sprint finals in Tokyo.ODD ANDERSEN/AFP
Mitchell’s form wasn’t great in the push test, but she put up a good enough time that the bobsleigh coaches took notice. The Olympic cyclist was invited back to learn how to sprint properly and keep pace with the speed athletes in bobsleigh. She began dropping time quickly.
“She’s a killer. I love that about her. She’s just got a killer mentality,” said Quin Sekulich, sprint coach for Canada’s bobsleigh and skeleton athletes.
Mitchell was used to pushing herself past opponents throughout cycling races on the velodrome. In bobsleigh, she had to learn to exert her energy differently to burst off the start line.
“The training changed quite a bit,” said Sekulich. “No more aerobic work. You don’t have to be fit to be fast in bobsleigh; it’s a five-second push.”
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Making the Olympic bobsleigh team wasn’t Mitchell’s initial goal when she tried out. She was looking to find the joy in sport again, to see if she could still be an athlete, away from the bike.
To be all-in on bobsleigh, she has not touched her bike since July. She wanted to focus on learning how to run – not cycle – her legs. She plans to return to cycling in April.
Calling her parents with the news she’d be going to a Winter Olympics was special.
“For Paris and Tokyo, I knew well in advance that I was going, where for this one, it came right down to the last days [to be named to the team],” said Mitchell. “So to call them and tell them to book their flights was exciting.”
The Olympic Bobsleigh competition takes place in Cortina from Feb. 15 to Feb. 22.