Aside from having unwavering determination, athletic talent and superhuman health, to become an Olympian requires devoting virtually all of one’s time to pursuing sport.
For Kelsey Mitchell, an Olympic track cycling champion who made the switch to bobsleigh in the months leading up to the 2026 Winter Olympics, the all-consuming athlete lifestyle seems to be what she knows best.
“I like the process of getting better at something,” Mitchell told CBC Sports.
“It’s given me a lot of perspective. I’m so grateful I’ve done this and so proud of myself, it’s a long hard season in Europe. It’s a grind sport. You’re moving sleds in the cold … I had to learn some resilience.”
This coming weekend, Canada’s bobsleigh team will compete in Altenberg, Germany for its last chance to qualify a sled at the Milano Cortina Olympics beginning Feb. 6.
Mitchell, last weekend, competed in her final race of the IBSF World Cup tour stop in St. Moritz, where she scored her and partner Melissa Lotholz’s best 2-woman result of the season.
Learn about how Tokyo 2020 gold medallist Kelsey Mitchell’s journey to bobsleigh began; her training, her mindset and more.
The 32-year-old from Sherwood Park, Alta., now awaits the results from Altenberg to see if she and the team will earn a berth to the Games.
“I feel like I‘ve done a lot of work to help the people who are racing,” Mitchell said. “I don’t have control over the outcome, I did everything I could and now I have to sit back and watch.”
The Canadian Olympic bobsleigh athletes will officially be named on Jan. 19 if the team manages to qualify.
After winning Olympic gold at the Tokyo Games in 2021, Mitchell stumbled to eighth in the women’s sprint track cycling event at Paris 2024.
If she’s named to the 2026 Olympic team, Mitchell would join a list of noteworthy Canadians who have competed at both the Summer and Winter Games, including road cyclist and speed skater Clara Hughes and championship hockey star Hailey Wickenheiser, who also competed in women’s softball at Sydney in 2000.
“Whatever the outcome, I’ll be okay with [it],” Mitchell said. “Obviously I really want to go and represent Canada, and perform and be at the Winter Olympics, but if it’s as an alternate, I’ll be the best alternate I can be and if it’s not going at all, I’ll cheer from afar from the couch.”
Learning the hard way
It was just over two months ago that Mitchell went down the track for the first time in Whistler, B.C.
“The first run down, I had so much fun. I was smiling the whole way down,” she said. “And then I went down the second and third time … I was hitting my head like crazy, I was so nauseous when I came out … I was honestly questioning everything.”
But Mitchell’s determination to improve quickly set in. She learned how to properly sit in the sled and protect her head for future runs, also building the strength to push the over 200-pound sled.
Her first real attempts in the sport that day were captured by documentarian Mackenzie Stannard, who also happens to be a former high school peer of Mitchell.
Brandon, Man., native talks about her transition from track cycling to bobsleigh on her quest to Milano Cortina 2026.
Stannard had been watching her career from afar for years, but when he saw that she was trading in her bike for a bobsled, his creative interest was piqued.
He sent her a message: “Is this a story?”
From there, the two caught up over the phone and Mitchell agreed to let him film her first run down the track.
“To see the moment of her coming down that slide for the first time, and seeing how locked in, worried, or like deflecting with humour,” Stannard marvelled.
“And then just seeing how much joy there was of her getting out of that sled and the camaraderie between teammates.”
Rediscovering the love of sport
For Mitchell, bobsleigh has been a path to rediscover her love of sport after losing it with track cycling.
Stannard believes that’s the message of this story.
“To me, this was a story about a person finding their ‘why’ again,” Stannard said. “So it was kind of like, ‘Where does she go next from here more internally in her relationship with being an athlete?’”
He adds that Mitchell isn’t afraid to let people in on the vulnerability as a rookie to the sport — “A dream for a documentarian,” he adds.
You can watch behind the scenes of Mitchell’s second Olympic sport journey in Stannard’s feature available on CBC Sports’s Youtube channel and cbcsports.ca.
As for Mitchell’s Olympic fate this winter, all there’s left to do is wait and see. And she’s not above superstition.
“I don’t want to jinx it.”
WATCH | Mitchell breaks down Olympic gold performance:
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