Barely two years ago, Kaysha Love was finishing somewhere around last place in what would best be described as minor bobsled races, but last week, she finished her meteoric rise in the sport to become a world bobsled champion.
She had an unexpected ally along the way: the greatest bobsledder ever.
The story goes like this: Love and longtime US 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.
Photo: AP
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, and for the next few minutes, Friedrich showed Love what he thought all the important details of the track were. Love could not believe it.
“It was amazing,” Love said. “I didn’t know what was happening.”
Photo: AFP
The story gets better. Love won the monobob race that week in La Plagne, her debut World Cup race.
Fast forward to Sunday’s IBSF World Championships, where Friedrich won the world two-man title, his 15th world championship. 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 US sled — has a different perspective.
Photo: AFP
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 is what he would do.
“It’s really important to help each other,” Friedrich said. “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 more than a decade. Love is a relative newcomer. He has won every race there is to win. She is still always freezing and gets made fun of for wearing as many as three jackets when warming up for a race.
However, 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.”
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