RIDING HIGH: Kelly Curtis is all smiles after completing a World Cup skeleton race at Altenberg, Germany, earlier this year. Former Princeton High girls’ basketball and track standout Curtis will be competing in the women’s skeleton and the mixed team skeleton this week at the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. It is her second trip to the Olympics, as she took 21st in the skeleton at the Beijing 2022 Olympics. (Photo provided by Kelly Curtis)
By Bill Alden
For Kelly Curtis, making the U.S. team in skeleton for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Games as she earned her second trip to the Olympics marked the culmination of a five-year plan.
“Ever since I requested to move to Aviano, Italy back in 2021 with the goal of making this team,” said former Princeton High girls’ basketball and track standout Curtis, who is part of the Air Force’s World Class Athlete Program and previously competed at the Beijing 2022 Olympics. “Everyone I have met in Italy whenever they ask what I am doing out there, I say I am in the military and I am training for the 2026 Games. Now here we are for the 2026 Games. It brings me so much joy to be able to represent my country and to be able to be in a position to represent my country again.”
Curtis, now 37, has experienced a number of ups and downs in that five-year journey.
She made the Beijing 2022 Olympics ahead of schedule and gained some valuable lessons from that experience.
“That Olympics was a great experience, a net positive,” said the 5’8, 160-pound Curtis, who finished 21st in the skeleton in Beijing. “It was also my worst skeleton race of the season. There were a lot of things leading into it. Looking back on my performance, there was a lot of me just not being settled into my sled. Maybe I put too much pressure on myself. Maybe I just never figured out the connection of the corners. Maybe it was the wrong equipment. I am able to go into these next Games knowing, ‘OK well, I know what happens.’ You have more eyes on you, but the track remains the same.”
Following her Olympic debut, Curtis was on track for a big 2022-23 season in the sport which involves barreling down an icy track face-first on a small fiberglass sled at speeds up to 90 mph.
“The post-Olympic year was fantastic, there weren’t too many women that retired after Beijing so it was relatively the same field,” said Curtis, who starred at track for Springfield College, winning the heptathlon at the 2011 Penn Relays before getting into sliding in 2014. “It was nice for me to be able to work my way up into the top position. It was also helpful that we had Lake Placid and Park City on the World Cup circuit that year. This past Olympic year and the one before that, it was all in Europe. It is definitely a different environment when we are able to compete in front of the home crowd.”
Curtis took a hiatus from the sport as she gave birth to her daughter Maeve on November 20, 2023.
“I didn’t compete in the 23-24 season,” said Curtis. “I did daily walks and I didn’t start physical training until about five-six weeks postpartum. Even with that it is still very gentle with the pelvic floor. It was very humbling to learn how to breathe.”
Having a baby gave Curtis a new perspective on life and competition.
“It is so hard to articulate what it is like to become a mother for the first time,” said Curtis. “The highs are even higher, the lows aren’t as low. I come back and I have a great day or I have a bad day, she just wants me. It is fantastic. It is the most joy I have ever felt and the most tired I have ever been.”
Returning to competition in the 2024-25 season, it took a while for Curtis to get up to speed as she worked to regain her strength and traveled with Maeve.
“A lot of the off-ice stuff was tough, trying to figure out how to travel with all of the skeleton stuff, all of the baby stuff and getting into the right mindset to compete that first year postpartum,” said Curtis, who traveled with her mother Deb for part of that season and then with her husband, Jeff Milliron, a former star in the discus who also did a stint as Princeton University track assistant coach.
“I felt very vulnerable. Physically, my joints were still pretty loose and my hormones were still regulating. It took until qualifying for world championships in Lake Placid to finally feel competitive again.”
Curtis’ father, John, a former PHS athletic director and All-American football star at Springfield College, was concerned that his daughter wasn’t going to able to make another Olympic run as she initially struggled that season.
“When she finished 34th out of 35 in one of her first races,” said John Curtis. “She was so far behind and I was saying, well, she has had a wonderful run. I didn’t think she would make the end of the season at that point. That was her first competition after having had Maeve. Her first couple of competitions were very trying.”
In reflecting on her comeback, Curtis saw progress in a campaign that saw her ultimately win the U.S. nationals and finish 10th at the World Championships.
“It was just like an uphill climb the whole season,” said Curtis.
“I finally felt relatively normal, like reaching my new normal when the season was over.”
Her father was proud to see Curtis get back in form. “Last year, her final race was at Lake Placid and she came in 10th at the World Championships,” said John Curtis. “It was like she might as well won it, as far as I was concerned, because of the way that she was able to regain focus and balancing nursing her daughter and at the same time competing with the best in the world.”
Coming into the 2025-26 season, Curtis faced another challenge as she injured her hamstring.
“I started out the season on a not so great note,” said Curtis. “I had a Grade Two hamstring tear in August, so that pretty much wiped away my offseason training right before a really big training block. The whole first half of World Cup, I was trying to play catch up and testing the hamstring and also backing off. It is a lot of managing that.”
Her father, though, was confident that she would catch up in time to make a second Olympic appearance.
“The one thing with her is that you just never count her out,” said John Curtis. “Even when she was in high school, when she was playing basketball or running track, she wouldn’t be dominant. I never got to a position where I was thinking she would just take over a game. She had this work ethic and this attitude that she was going to perform. She was going to be able to meet the task.”
With a berth on the U.S. squad on the line, Curtis displayed her ability to perform under pressure this January as she produced stirring final run at the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation (IBSF) World Cup in St. Moritz-Celerina, going from ninth to second to essentially lock up one of the two U.S. skeleton spots for the Olympics.
“I think prior to that race, I was technically U.S. No. 3 when it comes to points,” said Curtis. “I knew with the forecast of how the point spreads are between the World Cup and the North American cup that I had to average a certain position and I think going into that, I had to average 10th or above which I knew I was fully capable of. I was training well in St. Moritz during the week. My first run was OK. I knew there was more left in there. I just tried to put together the best run possible and then it turned out to be good enough for silver. That was fantastic, getting all of those points right then.”
Placing 17th in the final World Cup race at Altenberg, Curtis officially booked her trip for the Milan-Cortina Games.
Looking ahead to women’s competition this week at the Cortina Sliding Center which will feature two opening heats on February 13 and the final two heats on February 14 with the mixed team skeleton slated for February 15, Curtis is drawing confidence from her performance at St. Moritz.
“It shows me that when I slide at my best I am one of the best,” said Curtis. “I just need to bring it out on race day and we will see what happens.”
In order to bring out her best under the glare of Olympic pressure, Curtis is focusing on staying in the moment.
“It is being relaxed on the sled, I am grateful for my Beijing experience because looking back on it I could see that I was never truly relaxed on the sled,” said Curtis. “I was just trying to force things that weren’t there. When I slide in St. Moritz, I melt into my sled, I am just letting my sled take me. I am going down the course and letting the sled run. I need to bring that same form into Cortina.”
Looking ahead, Curtis is contemplating a third Olympic run, no matter what happens in Cortina.
“I am leaving the door open, I have been working for these games,” said Curtis, a staff sergeant who will get back to her Air Force job in knowledge management after the Games. “It will be me against father time. The bobsled women are crushing it. They are showing that you can do it as a mom in your early 40s and still be the best in the world. So if they can do it, I believe I can as well. That is a conversation I am going to have with my husband.”
As her father will tell you, never count Curtis out when she puts her mind to a task.