When Caleb Furnell graduated from Utah Valley University in 2024, the sprinter figured his athletic career was finished. He had graduated with a bachelor’s degree in exercise science and was figuring out whether to go on to a graduate degree or start a career.
“I was happily retired from the sport,” 24-year-old Furnell said in an interview with the Church News. He added, “I thought my athletic career was over.”
Now, the Latter-day Saint is running on ice and sprinting for about 40 yards as a push athlete and brakeman on one of the United States’ four-man bobsled teams. He’s in a sled with pilot Kris Horn and push athletes Carsten Vissering and Hunter Powell. (See below for when to watch.)
Furnell’s journey to the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics has twists and turns not unlike a bobsled track.
“As a little kid, I wanted to be an athlete,” Furnell said. “I thought it was soccer, then it was track, and I guess it’s now bobsled.”
Injuries and recovery
Caleb Furnell is from Lee’s Summit, Missouri, and is the second of four children — three boys and a girl, the youngest. “Caleb is a naturally gifted athlete and also works really hard,” said his mother, Margene Furnell.
Caleb Furnell competed in the high jump in high school — setting a state record his sophomore year. During his junior year, universities started recruiting him. At a meet at a university, he broke his leg while competing, Margene Furnell said. After, he wasn’t able to high jump at the same level as before his injury.
Caleb Furnell said: “I had to switch, so I started sprinting. Sprinting got me onto a college team.”
His senior year of high school, he talked to the track coach and tried sprinting events — and made it to the state championships and to the podium in one event.
After high school graduation, a couple of Furnell’s friends were going to Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and he decided to see if he could go to Utah Valley University in nearby Orem, Utah. He was a walk-on for the track and field team.
Furnell, who is 6 feet 2 inches tall, has three of the top times in the school’s records for the indoor and outdoor 200-meter race and the 4-by-100 relay, the school noted. In 2024, he was part of the Western Athletic Conference champion 4-by-100 relay team that qualified for the NCAA Regionals and was also a first-team All-Western Athletic Conference honoree in the 100-meter and 200-meter events.
Despite doing all he could to be healthy, he had a few injuries and setbacks that put Olympic track competition out of reach, said Brynlee Furnell, his wife. The couple married in 2023 in the Cedar City Utah Temple.
Pushing a bobsled
A friend invited Caleb Furnell to a bobsled and skeleton combine in Utah in fall 2024.
He said that in a bobsled “you’re folded over and you’re just feeling all this pressure on your back, like sucking into the sled. But they don’t tell you how shaky and rattly and noisy it is.”
In his position in the back, his head is down and he can’t see anything. It was disorienting and chaotic the first time, he said.
“I had my combine in October, and then starting in November, I was like, ‘OK, I’ve got 45 weeks till next season to completely change my body, essentially, to fit this sport better.’ And so that’s what I did,” Furnell said. Also during his training, he was asked to fill in a couple of bobsled races in Park City, Utah.
After the combine and a rookie camp, he was invited to the USA National Push Championships in Lake Placid, New York, in September 2025. He was one of the 12 push athletes named to the World Cup teams. After more training in Lake Placid, he was put with a team and “luckily, my team has stayed the same.”
Since November, he and his team have been in Europe competing in World Cup races, he said. He did get to go back to Missouri for Christmas, and his wife met him there.
“Bobsled was kind of a curveball. We didn’t plan for it really,” said Brynlee Furnell.
She said she’s been grateful for the community she has in Vineyard, Utah, including their Latter-day Saint ward, while her husband has been in Europe.
Margene Furnell said of her son’s journey, “Where you think that there are dead ends, the Lord turned them into a different path.”
Sliding in the Olympics
Caleb Furnell and his team are in the Olympic Village in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, where they will compete in Cortina Sliding Centre. He walked with the United States contingent in the opening ceremonies.
“It’s fun to see all of the [athletes] from other countries, and it’s been enjoyable so far,” he said.
Brynlee Furnell said she remembers that when she and Caleb were dating, he had Paris 2024 as a goal on a dreamboard. Looking back, she’s seen how the Lord guided his path.
“My faith in how much God knows us as individuals has just been incredibly strengthened,” she said.
When to watch: The bobsled, or bobsleigh, competition consists of four races, timed to the hundredth of a second. The team with the fastest total time is the winner.
The first two heats of the four-man bobsled races are Saturday, Feb. 21, at 10 a.m. Italy time (2 a.m. Mountain) at the Cortina Sliding Centre in Cortina d’Ampezzo. The final two heats are on Sunday, Feb. 22, beginning at 10 a.m. Italy time (2 a.m. Mountain). The fourth and final race begins at 12:15 p.m. (4:15 a.m. Mountain).
