Colin Jost and Jason Kelce Took on Bobsledding — and It Was Way More Brutal Than Expected
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If you’re watching the bobsled events at the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics and wondering what it actually feels like inside that sleigh, two celebrities just gave you the most vivid description you’ll find anywhere.
And it might change the way you watch the next final.
Former NFL star Jason Kelce, 38, and Saturday Night Live cast member Colin Jost, 43, both tried bobsledding with Team USA ahead of these Games.
Neither of them were shy about the fear they felt as they slid down the track.
Their descriptions are raw, detailed, and deeply illuminating for anyone trying to understand exactly what Olympic bobsled athletes endure every time they push off at the top.
84 Miles Per Hour and 5 Gs of Force
Here’s the number that should reshape how you watch every bobsled run this month: 5 Gs.
That’s the gravitational force Kelce said he experienced while hurtling down the track at 84 miles per hour. To put that in perspective, fighter pilots wear specialized G-suits to withstand forces in that range.
Kelce — a man who spent 13 seasons absorbing collisions in the NFL — was overwhelmed by it.
The former Super Bowl champion trained with the USA Bobsled Team in Park City, Utah. The footage was released on YouTube on Feb. 15.
“The team put me through a full combine — 30-meter sprint, vertical jump, broad jump — then taught me how to push on the dry-land training track before suiting up and going down the actual ice track at 80+ mph pulling 5 Gs,” he wrote in the video’s description.
But it was his full, detailed breakdown of the ride — shared in a comment on Instagram — that truly translates the experience for those of us watching from our couches.
“I thought this would be like a fun roller coaster, but man was I wrong. It started out quiet and smooth, but as we continued to pick up speed the intensity got higher and higher,” he wrote.
“The turns bounced my shoulders and head like I was back on a football field, the noise of the sled got louder and louder, rattling as if the whole thing was falling apart,” he added.
Kelce went on to say that the 5Gs felt like 1,400 pounds punching him into the bottom of the sled.
“Its metal rails I was sitting on bruising my hips. At that point, it was so loud I could no longer hear my own screams, which I’m not sure I was even producing because the air had been squeezed out of my body,” he wrote.
“Just as I wondered how much more of it I could take, I heard the relieving sound of the brakes,” he concluded.
Read that again before the next bobsled final. A 280-pound former NFL center — someone whose entire career was built on absorbing physical punishment — said the metal rails bruised his hips and the force squeezed the air from his body. That’s what Olympic bobsled athletes manage with precision, control, and calm, run after run.
Colin Jost Thought He Was Going to Die
Jost, who is serving as an NBC correspondent for the 2026 Winter Olympics, shared a similar experience while in Lake Placid, N.Y. earlier this year.
His account, delivered with his signature comedic flair, carried an unmistakable undercurrent of genuine terror.
“I went down the bobsled, I went from start point one at the top with a very gifted driver, thankfully, Bryan Berghorn,” Jost said in an interview with Mike Tirico on Feb. 16. “And I was not prepared for the level of terror of this bobsled. I swear to God, I thought I was going to die.”
“I thought my back was going to snap in half, I thought my bones were going to fly off my body and be littered all up and down the bobsled track,” Jost continued. “It was by far the scariest experience I’ve ever had in my life.”
For viewers watching Jost’s NBC Olympics coverage, that context matters.
When he reports on bobsled events during these Games, he’s speaking from firsthand, visceral experience — not just reading teleprompter copy.
He has personally felt the forces that athletes navigate at elite speeds, and his descriptions offer a bridge between what viewers see on the screen and what’s actually happening inside the sleigh.
Bobsled Is One of the Most Intense Winter Sports
For viewers tuning in to watch this event for the first time during Milano Cortina 2026, here’s what you need to know.
Bobsleigh, or bobsled, is a winter sport in which individual athletes or teams of 2 to 4 athletes — or a single woman in monobob — make timed speed runs down narrow, twisting, banked, iced tracks in a gravity-powered sleigh.
At Milano Cortina 2026 there will be four bobsleigh events: 2-man bobsleigh, 4-man bobsleigh, 2-woman bobsleigh and women’s monobob, according to the Olympics official site.
The sport has deep Olympic roots.
The first recorded bobsled competition was held in Switzerland, in 1898, in St. Moritz, according to NBC News. It made its Olympic debut at the inaugural Winter Games in Chamonix, France, in 1924.
USA Bobsled Is Already on the Medal Stand
If you haven’t been tracking the bobsled results yet, the United States has already made its mark at Milano Cortina 2026.
So far, the USA has won a gold (Elana Meyers Taylor) and bronze (Kaillie Armbruster Humphries) medal in the Women’s Monobob Bobsleigh. The final took place on Feb. 16, per ESPN.
That’s two American athletes on the podium in the same event — a strong statement from a USA Bobsled program that clearly came to compete.
What’s Left on the Bobsled Schedule
There are still three bobsled finals remaining at these Games, and now you know exactly what the athletes inside those sleighs are enduring at every turn. Here’s when to watch:
- Men’s two-man final: Feb. 17
- Women’s two-man final: Feb. 21
- Men’s four-man final: Feb. 22
The next time you see a bobsled crew rocket through a banked turn on your screen, remember Kelce’s words.
1,400 pounds of force pressing him into metal rails, the air squeezed from his body, the sled rattling as if it were falling apart — all at 84 miles per hour.
The athletes competing for medals at Milano Cortina aren’t just riding that chaos. They’re steering through it with fractions of seconds separating gold from fourth place.
That’s what makes bobsled one of the most physically punishing and compelling events at the Winter Olympics — and now you have the context to appreciate every single run.