Humphries calls Lou Marsh Award ‘amazing honour’ as she prepares for historic competition

Kaillie Humphries was getting ready in her hotel room as her phone started buzzing uncontrollably.

“My phone just started beeping and beeping and I was like, what is going on?” she said.

It was five minutes before she had to leave for her training run in Lake Placid when she got the news she had won Canada’s highest athletic honour.

Humphries was named the 2014 Lou Marsh Award winner Thursday morning, given to Canada’s top individual athlete as voted on by 20 members of Canadian sports media.

It caps off a year in which the 29-year-old Calgarian won her second straight Olympic gold medal at the Sochi Games and was also named Canada’s flag bearer for the closing ceremonies along with brakeman Heather Moyse.

A month before, the pilot won her second consecutive overall World Cup title for Canada and said the award is an amazing honour, joining a prestigious club which includes Terry Fox, Wayne Gretzky, Bobby Orr, Rick Hansen, Donovan Bailey, Steve Nash and Christine Sinclair.

“The list goes on and on and when I think of myself as an athlete, sometimes it’s hard to put myself in that same category as the athletes that I’ve grown up watching or knowing about,” she said. “It’s shocking for me to be within that same category in all fairness, I think that was more of a surprise.”

Although she humbly accepts the award, Humphries admits it was on her radar, especially after the International Bobsled and Skeleton Federation approved she – as well as American Elana Meyers Taylor – could compete in the four-man bobsleigh after two years of lobbying for the opportunity.

“Understanding how big it can be or could get with women in sport and us being able to all compete together, the men and women in four-man, I knew the award was possible,” she said. “By no means is it a complete shock or do I feel undeserving, I’ve worked as hard as I do and it’s an honour for the country to be able to back me the way that they do, and so that’s what I appreciate out of it the most.”

The country will be able to show that support next weekend in Calgary, when Humphries and her team of D.J. McLelland, Dan Dale and Joey Nemet take to the track on the second stop of the World Cup circuit.

This weekend she is just competing in the women’s event on Saturday.

While Humphries is still processing the significance of her latest achievement, that of her upcoming and ground breaking event isn’t lost on her and she admits there has been some negative, albeit minor, reaction to the barrier coming down.

She references comments that have been made by old-school athletes and coaches, such as mentioning quitting if they ever got beat by a woman.

“You know there is some truth behind it and the guys (her teammates), I need them to want to race with me because of the negativity that could be there, is there a lot of it? No. Have I seen one or two little comments come out? For sure, it’s always in jokes, but after a while, it can really break down people,” she said.

A victim of bullying herself growing up, Humphries said she’s looking out not only for herself, but her teammates as well.

“I race for my guys and I need them to want to race for me, when you stand on that line, it’s not just me, it’s about the team and you’re doing it for each other,” she said, adding however that the sport’s community is very tight-knit and for every negative comment that could happen, there will be many more positive ones.

“In all fairness, I could care less if everyone hated me, as long as I’m doing my best and we’re succeeding and high-performance and we’re winning, then that is all I need,” she said.

Humphries winning the Lou Marsh Award also marks the first time the prize has been given to a bobsleigh athlete in 75 years.

It’s also the second straight year it’s going to a Calgary-based athlete, as Stampeders star Jon Cornish won it in 2013.

“That’s just a testament to the type of athletes and calibre that we have within the city and how much the city really appreciates sport,” she said. “To be able inspire that up and coming generation, it’s a great feeling.”