Lee’s Summit grad clinches spot on USA bobsled team for 2026 Winter Olympics
Caleb Furnell had news to share. Just a year removed from his first bobsled race, he had been named to the Olympic team and would represent the United States at Milano Cortina 2026.
Furnell, 24, a Lee’s Summit native, had put his life on hold to push for the opportunity, and the decision had paid off. On a whim, he had given the sport a shot in 2024 and now had the chance to compete on a global stage.
He called his mom, Margene Furnell, and was overcome with emotion.
“I was just bawling,” he said from Austria, where he has been training in the lead-up to the Olympics, in an interview with The Star. “It was years of hard work to finally get to a moment like this. It was a lot.”
Margene Furnell’s mind flashed back a few years to when her son was in high school, to a serious injury he suffered during a track competition. Neither of them could have imagined then where he’d be today.
“For us, eight years ago was a pretty tough time in his sports career,” she said. “We weren’t sure exactly where he was going to end up. Everything he thought he was planning had just been derailed in a moment.”
A murky future
Furnell, a 2019 Lee’s Summit West High School graduate, played soccer and ascended as an underclassman high jumper. As a sophomore, he jumped a Class 5 state record 6 feet 8 inches and won a state title. College programs came calling, and his path after high school appeared promising. Could he wind up at an SEC school?
“Obviously, he had just the genetics to be a great athlete,” said Michael Shortino, Furnell’s track coach at Lee’s Summit West. “Anytime you can win an event like high jump your sophomore year, that’s pretty good.”
“He has everything you want in a track athlete: speed, power, the size, everything. Looking at him, he’s a great-looking athlete. But mentally is kind of where he sets himself apart from everybody. When it’s crunch time, you knew he was going to perform.”
In January 2018, Furnell traveled to the University of Arkansas for a track event, met with a coach one day, and on the following day, during competition, his leg snapped during a high jump. He broke his tibia and fibula, and suddenly the future looked murky.
“There we were in Arkansas and just suddenly it was like, here we thought this path was opening up for him to become this elite high jumper, and instead we were in a hospital and having surgery and suddenly his soccer career was on hold,” Margene Furnell recalled.
Her son rehabbed and worked hard to make it back to play soccer his senior year of high school. He made an effort to get back to jumping, but when the pain persisted, he shifted to sprinting.
“It was quite the journey with him in high school,” Shortino said. “Lots of one-on-ones with him and his parents and everything, going through injuries and navigating not only the injury but being a state champion so young. We got to know each other well.”
An Olympic athlete
Furnell ended up at Utah Valley University, where he continued his track career as a sprinter. Not long after Furnell’s season ended in 2024, a friend let him know about a USA Bobsled/Skeleton recruiting combine in nearby Salt Lake City, designed to find promising athletes for further training. Furnell agreed to go for fun, just to give it a shot.
He performed well and earned an invitation to a rookie camp at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Lake Placid, New York. Bobsledding stuck, and Furnell got into his first race as a fill-in in January 2025. He continued to train and compete with the national team in recent months, and last week he heard his name called to the Olympic team.
“What really kept me coming back to it initially was just the fact that I knew that I had some potential in it,” he said. “I was like, I think if I were to put some serious effort into it, I think I could be good at this.”
Early on, he found no joy in the sliding experience. It’s deafening inside the sled as it thunders down the track. The wind howls, and the sound of the runners grinding over the ice is surprisingly loud. Everything echoes. It’s a bumpy ride.
“It’s like a car accident for 50 seconds,” he said. “But then you get used to it, your body adapts to it. There was always just that goal of this could take me to the (Olympics). I always wanted that. It was worth suffering through.”
Furnell will compete on a four-man team, where he’s positioned at the back of the sled as the last person to hop aboard after a furious starting sprint. His job is to tuck in as flat as possible, hold on for dear life and pull the brakes at the end of the run.
“It’s a little chaotic,” he said, “but you get used to it.”
Growing up
Both Caleb Furnell and his mother recalled watching the winter games with Margene’s mother, who was born and raised in Norway, where “watching the Winter Olympics is like a religion,” Margene Furnell said.
But then it was mostly skiing events they paid close attention to. In recent months, as Caleb committed to bobsled, his family has learned how this new sport worked, its ins and outs.
“It’s just been a ride,” Margene Furnell said.
It’s a surreal path her son has been on, she said. He ended up in Utah, the starting point in his bobsled journey, in part, because he didn’t get to high jump and didn’t have those power conference schools looking at him, she said.
“It’s pretty amazing that even though it didn’t go the way he thought it was going to go, it’s even better than he anticipated in a different way,” she said.
“More than anything, I’m just excited to be there,” Caleb Furnell said. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
The 2026 Winter Olympics begin Feb. 6, and four-man bobsled events begin Feb. 18.
