Daily Times

LOS ANGELES: Two-time Canadian Olympic gold medallist Kaillie Humphries became a US citizen on Thursday which will allow her to compete for the Americans at the Beijing Olympics. The move ends a lengthy saga in which the reigning world champion Humphries tried to cut ties with her native Canada so she could represent the US in women’s bobsledding at the Winter Olympics which begin in just nine weeks. “I’m more emotional than I thought I would be,” Humphries said of her citizenship meeting in San Diego. “Even though you believe in your application and you know it meets the requirements, you don’t know. When she came back in and said ‘Yes, I’m approving your application for citizenship,’ then it was real.” Humphries, who won three Olympic medals, including two gold, left Canada’s program after filing a complaint in 2018 of verbal and emotional abuse by a Canadian coach. The bobsleigh federation granted the Calgary-born Humphries a release in 2019 after she had tried unsuccessfully to get the Canadian court system to force the governing body to do it. Humphries, who has been living on a green card, raced for the US at a World Cup stop in Austria last weekend.