Gold medal cyclist, former diver named to Canada’s Olympic bobsled team

By Canadian Press on January 23, 2026.

CALGARY — Kelsey Mitchell joins a select group of Canadian athletes who are Olympians in both summer and winter Olympic Games.

The gold medallist in track cycling was named to Canada’s bobsled team Friday for the Milan Cortina Winter Games.

The 32-year-old from Sherwood Park, Alta., won sprint cycling gold in Tokyo in 2021. Mitchell was selected to Canada’s pool of bobsled brakewomen.

Of the 14 athletes who have represented Canada in both Winter and Summer Olympic Games, Mitchell is the sixth bobsledder.

“I think there’s going to be 14 of us now in Canada have done it, and to be a part of that group is special,” Mitchell said Friday at Olympic Heights School where the team was introduced to the children.

“It’s always special to be going to the Olympics, and so to be able to have gone to the summer and now the winter as well is just, yeah, I don’t even have the words.”

Cyclist and speedskater Clara Hughes is the only Canadian athlete to win medals in both Summer and Winter Games.

Mitchell, who also raced in cycling in the 2024 Summer Games in Paris, joined the bobsled team last year.

“I’ve learned a lot going to the Games,” said Mitchell. “I have to just tell myself it’s another race and that’s what it will be in Cortina for me.

“Hopefully I can help use my wisdom and knowledge that I’ve had from the other Games and help my teammates as well, just maybe with some nerves and how to navigate the Games.”

The 2026 edition of the Olympic bobsled team features 17 athletes including three alternates.

Canada qualified three sleds in women’s bobsled and two in women’s monobob, two-man and four-man.

In each event, medals are decided by the combined times of four runs at the Cortina Sliding Centre.

Melissa Lotholz of Barrhead, Alta., heading to her third Olympic Games and Toronto’s Cynthia Appiah to her second will pilot women’s sleds and also race monobob.

Calgary firefighter Bianca Ribi punched a ticket for a third women’s sled in the final World Cup races of the qualifying period.

Edmonton’s Dawn Richard-Wilson and Skylar Sieben of Cochrane, Alta., join Mitchell as brakewomen.

Taylor Austin of Lethbridge, Alta., will pilot two-man and four-man sleds in his second Olympic Games. Former CFL defensive back Jay Dearborn will also pilot two sleds.

Keaton Bruggeling of St. Catharines, Ont., Calgary’s Yohan Eskrick-Parkinson, Ottawa’s Mike Evelyn O’Higgins, Toronto’s Shaq Murray-Lawrence, Luka Stoikos of Stouffville, Ont., and Mark Zanette of Woodbridge, Ont., were selected as brakemen.

Toronto’s Niamh Haughey, Calgary’s Eden Wilson and Chris Holmstead of Burlington, Ont., joined as alternates.

Eskrick-Parkinson, who grew up in Calgary, represented Jamaica in the 2023 and 2024 world diving championship, but fell short of qualifying for the Paris Summer Games.

The 25-year-old joined Canada’s bobsled team in 2024 to realize his Olympic dream in a very different sport.

“It’s hard to put into words because it’s such an achievement. I still wish I had been able to do it with diving,” Eskrick-Parkinson said.

“The fact that I was able to switch and do this is its own achievement.”

Canadians have won 10 Olympic bobsled medals since 1964, including five golds, two silver and three bronze.

Canada has earned at least one bobsled medal in every Olympic Games since 2006.

Women’s bobsled made its Olympic debut in 2002 and women’s monobob in 2022.

Lotholz and Appiah rank sixth and seventh in the world respectively in monobob.

“I surprised myself this year with how strong my monobob performance has been,” Lotholz said.

“Going into the Games, I’ve had multiple fifth and sixth place finishes, and the Olympic Games is a consistency race. I would say I’m definitely a medal contender. I’m in the conversation, so I want to deliver four great runs and see where that leads me.”

Appiah earned a World Cup silver medal in Winterberg, Germany, in early January, which added to a season in which she achieved another lifelong goal: competing on the Jeopardy! game show.

“I’m happy if I can put four solid runs down. That’s going to be the difference between a medal and just being off the podium,” Appiah said.

“Last Olympics, I made some mistakes and it came down to not being consistent. Put four consistent runs down and I’ll be happy at the end of the day. I feel like it’ll lead to that medal that I’m looking to get.”

Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton high-performance director Jesse Lumsden, a three-time Olympian in the sport and a former CFL player, says the bobsled team has been in a rebuilding mode since 2022

“This team is capable of a lot. We have slipped in rankings that we’ve had in past quads, but we’ve had also shown glimmers of . . . I don’t want to say hope because hope is not a strategy, but excellent performance,” Lumsden said.

“To be successful at an Olympics or a world championships, you don’t need to the fastest every single heat, but you need be fast and you need to be consistent.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 23, 2026.

Donna Spencer, The Canadian Press