Kaillie Humphries

0:28Well good afternoon. Good afternoon. How are you? Good. I'm doing very well. Good. We were just in a room with 700 kids all chanting for you. Yeah, it was pretty exciting. Inspiring. It is definitely. You now you have to win something because they will be so disappointed if you don't. Oh no, I'm sure I'm sure they'll love us just to say. No, I know very well. And I'm sure you'll win anyway so it won't even be a big deal. I mean second overall or this year rather. So you're coming off a nice little high here. Yeah, it's been a pretty successful season. So I'm pretty happy and we'll just keep it going and roll it right into Vancouver. Right. Have you gotten down the track yet? Have you had a chance? Yeah, we've for the last couple years we've been on it as much as possible. Nice. It started in the end of every year. And we've also competed at a World Cup event on there. Cool. So do you have more practice on it

1:16than most other countries then? Yeah. Is that a very safe thing? That would be very safe for sure. So definitely hopefully gives us a home track advantage. Yeah, for sure. Now here's some people walk the tracks beforehand just so they know the corners and all that kind of stuff. We do have a track walk before we slide every day. So check out the track, make sure. Just see kind of if the ice has changed, different shades just kind of go through the whole track in your head again. Right. Just for mental preparation and stuff. Right. So you were a break man for a while. Or a break woman rather. I don't know if there's a politically correct term for it. Women's break man. There you go. That's what we call it. All right. What made the change? After the 2006 Olympics, I was named as the SPAR to the 2006 Olympics, which was devastating for me.

2:10I was not really prepared for it. I had an injury at the start of the year. And to be there and to be so close. And I got the title and the name and everything else so the clothing but to not be able to compete and be standing right there and not being able to compete. Devastating me. It was very, very hard. So I decided that I would no longer be a break man ever again if I was going to continue in the sport. It would be as a pilot. And or I would switch to a different country and trying to compete. So should possibly go to the UK? Possibly. Yeah. That was definitely an option. So yeah, it was one of those two. And in March I just had done a driving school and it had gone really well. So this past March or a while? No, quite after 2006. So March of 2006 I did a driving school and

3:00yeah, it went really well and driving kind of just has evolved since then. So what's the difference between being a break man and a pilot? What's the biggest difference you've noticed? Being a pilot comes with a lot more responsibility. As a pilot, I'm responsible for the equipment. A portion of it's not for purchasing and or renting, getting the sleds and the runners and kind of everything organized. So the equipment is in mind. So that's a big responsibility. And just generally in our sport, it's not that we're any more important than the break man because it takes to be able to do the sport. So the break man are equally just as important but because the pilot is responsible for the equipment and a lot more, it's usually the pilot's name that kind of goes along like it would be Bob Team Humphreys or Bob Team Looters that kind of that had the

3:54team name. So really that's about all. You mentioned you mentioned looters and I know he kind of showed you the ropes on how to do it. He definitely did. He's been a huge mentor to me in the last four years. That's awesome. You mentioned your injury before. It was a garden hose that kept you out of the game. Yeah, that was fun. That was in the best shape of my life in August and then I had an opportunity to do the world push championships in Mexico. And at the time, you don't really think anything of it. I just for sponsors, for future titles, everything, I wanted to be the world push champion. As a break man, that's huge. It's a big title. So I had gone to Guadalajam Mexico and during the warm up of the competition. I tried to jump over garden hose and somehow I can't even,

4:46I don't even know how it happened but somehow I rolled my ankle and tore all the ligaments muscles in my ankle. So it put me out basically until December kind of of the Olympic year and I had a couple months and I was able to come back well enough to be the spare. So that's the accomplishment in itself but it wasn't enough and it was very hard. So I definitely learned from that lesson. No, just no more jumping, no more testing living. No more things like that. No, not the Olympic year. Yeah, fair enough. And you're feeling completely fine now. I mean, it's been a while. All good. All good. No repercussions. And yeah, it's just, unfortunately that's the path that was chosen for me. So I made the best of it and we'll see what happens come this February. I'm

5:35definitely excited to get to compete and kind of have my Olympic experience. Yeah, for sure. And probably win a medal. Not probably win a medal. Win a medal. Whatever happens happens. Push the best, drive well and whatever happens at the bottom will happen. Definitely. I know you're excited to actually compete as well. Is there anything you're excited to go see as well? I'm excited definitely to go see a lot of the events. Are you going to a bunch of you decided? Not yet. I don't really know what ones. I'll go to as many as I can after my competition. We compete and then we've got four days left. So whatever is left in those four days, I'm hitting them up 24-7. All the events I can do, I'm going to go. The COCs put on an Olympic excellence series for the last couple years and I've gone and I've been able to make some really

6:23amazing friends with a lot of other really great amazing athletes. So I'm excited to go watch them compete and cheer them on once I'm done. And you know you just you build personal relationships. And it's always you know if you know somebody or you've met somebody, it just makes it a little more special. So I'm definitely excited to go watch all of them. Speed skating and curling and lots of sports. We're talking about knowing someone meeting someone. I met Mark Twoxbrew when I was six and he made me want to swim. You met him and he made you want to go to the Winter Olympics. Well not the Winter Olympics. He made me want to be an Olympic and win an Olympic medal. So it was that that was definitely started by him and at the time I was skiing. So it just kind of fell into the skiing category. Didn't end up happening in skiing. I just wasn't at that level. I competed against

7:15a lot of the girls that are on the Olympic team and were there in 2006. But just I was never at that level. So I had to pick a difference for it and Bob's racing to the end. Yeah and you seem to have found your sport. Seemed to work and agree with me. Awesome. Well good luck at the games. Thank you. Thank you.