Kaysha Love’s path to becoming a world bobsled champion had an unlikely ally along the way

LAKE PLACID, N.Y. — Utah’s Kaysha Love’s path to becoming a world bobsled champion had an unlikely ally along the way.

That would be the greatest bobsledder ever.

The story goes like this: Love and longtime U.S. bobsled coach Brian Shimer were watching film on an iPad before her first World Cup race as a pilot in December 2023, going over every nuance of the track at La Plagne, France. As they talked, Love felt someone next to her. The person who crashed the conversation was German bobsled great Francesco Friedrich, who has more wins than anyone in the sport’s history.

He asked for the iPad. It was handed over. And for the next few minutes, Friedrich showed Love what he thought all the important details of the track were. Love couldn’t believe it.

“It was amazing,” Love said to the AP. “I didn’t know what was happening.”

The story gets even better: Love won the monobob race that week in La Plagne, her debut World Cup race.

Fast forward to Sunday. Friedrich won the world two-man title. his 15th world championship. And a few hours later, Love — in just her second season as a full-time driver — won her first world title by prevailing in the monobob competition.

It might seem like an unusual pairing: A German helping an American, when both nations are trying to beat each other on the track. Friedrich — who has even given some of his own money to other teams in the past, including at least one U.S. sled — has a different perspective.

To him, a bobsledder is a bobsledder. He wants to keep the sport going, and if that means sharing knowledge with sliders from other nations then that’s what he’ll do.

“It’s really important to help each other,” Friedrich said to the AP. “We’re only a small family and we want the sport’s life to be long and to (keep) the sport in the Olympic program. If we don’t help to create or help (other) nations, or if I don’t help, I think there can come a day when we’re not in the Olympics. That is when our sport dies and that’s what we don’t want.”

Friedrich has been in the sport for well over a decade. Love is a relative newcomer. He’s won every race there is to win. She’s still always freezing and gets made fun of for wearing as many as three jackets when warming up for a race. But on Sunday, they were in exactly the same spot — atop the medal stand at Mount Van Hoevenberg, as world champions heading into the looming Olympic season.

“I’m still learning these ropes. I’m still trying to develop things,” Love said. “And although it’s my journey and this is all I know, the reality is that this progression is not really like a normal thing.”

Love and her teammates are in a holding pattern to learn whether or not the bobsledding will be in the host nation of Italy in the 2026 Olympics or possibly in Lake Placid.

A short list of longtime American bobsled, skeleton and luge leaders are in Lake Placid from Park City working at these World Championships including newly named 2034 Utah Olympics Venues and Sport Director Colin Hilton, Utah Olympic Legacy Foundation Callum Clark, Olympic Bobsled Official Sue Kapis, Olympic Event Producer Kris Severson and Olympic Announcer Carl Roepke.

The Utah delegation is taking advantage of the entirety of the global sliding community gathered together for not only the first organizational meetings on USA soil since Utah was awarded the 2034 Games, but also to discuss important points leading up to Park City’s Utah Olympic Park hosting the 2029 Bobsled and Skeleton World Championships. 

And for some athletes, Olympic sliding in Lake Placid or Italy would both have comforts of home.