Kaysha Love put the bobsled world on notice when she upset the sport’s veterans to win gold in the monobob at the 2025 IBSF World Championships in Lake Placid. With less than a year until the 2026 Olympics, she is now among the favorites.
“I started bobsled in 2021 as a brakeman, and made the Olympic team in 2022,” said Love, a former sprinter who graduated from the University of Nevada Las Vegas. After the Games, she began training as a pilot while still serving as a brakewoman. Last year, she turned her full focus to piloting both the monobob and the two-woman, finishing fifth in the latter at the World Championships with Jasmine Jones.
“Starting off as a brakeman and being in that role of having to adjust to different pilots has really helped me in my piloting role adjust to the different brakeman I push with,” said Love. “It really does boil down to the chemistry, the connection and the timing, which is where you make sure in practice runs you work on those things.”
Love prefers the teamwork of two-woman, but monobob, which made its Olympic debut in 2022, builds her skills. It gives her a chance to test out various aspects of piloting without worrying about another person. Finding the fastest line on the track requires pushing the limits.
“Sometimes finding that perfect speed line can be … potentially dangerous,” she said. “Monobob gives you the confidence to flirt with those super fast lines and gain more confidence doing something that you may not be as confident doing in two-man.”
Born and raised in Utah, Love was too young to fully appreciate the 2002 Olympic Winter Games held in Salt Lake City, but she now celebrates that those Games marked the debut of women’s bobsled and also the first Black person to win Winter Olympic gold, U.S. bobsledder Vonetta Flowers. In the years since, the sport has become increasingly diverse, and Love is proud to be a part of that.
Love appreciates the bobsled tracks in Utah, allowing her to live and train near family as well as sit on the steering committee for 2034 Games, which will return to Salt Lake City. She’s also up for giving the cast of “Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” a tour of the facilities.
“I get to be a part of the generation that gets to inspire the next generation, like Vonetta Flowers and Elana Meyers Taylor did for me,” said Love.