In the final standings after four heats, the USA four-man bobsled team in the 2026 Milan Cortina Games with Latter-day Saint Caleb Furnell placed 11th.
Furnell is on the USA sled with pilot Kris Horn and fellow push athletes Hunter Powell and Carsten Vissering.
The competition included four heats down the twisty and icy track at the Cortina Sliding Centre, known as the “house of speed.” The fastest sleds reach speeds up to 85 mph (137 kilometers per hour). The team with the fastest total time in four heats is the winner. Places are determined by hundredths of a second.
The first two heats were Saturday, Feb. 21, and Furnell’s sled was in ninth place. The final two heats were Sunday, Feb. 22 — the final day of the Winter Olympics.
During the third heat, the Team USA sled had a time of 55.22 seconds, less than a second behind the leader, according to times on Olympics.com. It had the third-best start time but slipped and skidded on a slippery spot out of the start gate that added to its time. The commentators noted that a few other sleds had skidded in that same spot. Overall, Team USA’s combined race time of 2 minutes, 44.83 seconds put it in 11th place.
For the fourth heat, the Team USA sled had a time of 55.11 seconds, with the second-best starting time, according to the results on Olympics.com. The team’s combined time was 3 minutes, 39.94 seconds, which was 2.37 seconds behind the gold medal winners.
Team USA has two sleds in the four-man bobsled competition. The sled piloted by Frankie del Duca finished 12th overall with a combined time of 3 minutes, 40.06 seconds.
The gold medal winner was the German team piloted by Johannes Lochner, who also won the two-man bobsled competition, and its overall time was 3 minutes, 37.57 seconds. Thorsten Margis, one of the push athletes on the first-place German sled, now has five gold medals in bobsled, according to news reports.
Two-time defending Olympic champion Francesco Friedrich, piloting a second German team, took second place with a time of 3 minutes, 38.14 seconds. A Swiss team piloted by Michael Vogt won bronze with a time of 3 minutes, 38.64 seconds.
About Caleb Furnell
Furnell, 24, is a graduate of Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, where he was a sprinter on the track team and also set school records. From Lee’s Summit, Missouri, Furnell thought his athletic career was over, but a friend suggested he try out for a bobsled combine.
After trying out, 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.
The 2026 Milan Cortina Games are his first Olympics.
