When Caleb Farnell graduated from Utah Valley University in 2024, the sprinter thought his competitive career was over. He had graduated with a bachelor’s degree in exercise science and was considering attending graduate school or starting a career.
“I’m happy to retire from the sport,” Farnell, 24, said in an interview with Church News. He further added, “I thought my athletic career was over.”
Today, Latter-day Saints take to the ice as pushers and brakemen for one of America’s four-man bobsled teams, sprinting about 40 yards. He is riding the sled with pilot Chris Horn and pushers Karsten Visseling and Hunter Powell. (Please see below for viewing times.)
Farnell’s journey to the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics has had its share of twists and turns, much like the bobsled track.
“When I was a kid, I wanted to be an athlete,” Farnell said. “I thought it was soccer, but it turned into track and field, and now it seems like it’s bobsled.”
injury and recovery
Caleb Farnell is a native of Lee’s Summit, Missouri, the second of four children and the youngest of three boys and one girl. “Caleb is a naturally gifted athlete and a very hard worker,” said his mother, Margene Farnell.
Caleb Farnell competed in the high jump in high school and set a state record as a sophomore. During his junior year, colleges started recruiting him. Margene Farnell said she broke her leg while competing in a college tournament. After that, he was unable to high jump at the same level as before the injury.
“I had to make a switch, so I started sprinting. Sprinting got me on the college team,” Caleb Farnell said.
During his senior year of high school, he asked his track coach to try sprint competitions and reached state championships in that event, finishing on the podium.
After high school, several of Farnell’s friends were planning to attend Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, so Farnell decided to see if he could attend Utah Valley University near Orem, Utah. He was an alternate on the track and field team.
Farnell, who is 6 feet 2 inches tall, holds three school record times in the 200-meter race indoors and outdoors and in the 4×100 relay, the school said. In 2024, he was a member of the Western Athletic Conference championship 4×100 relay team that qualified for the NCAA Regionals and also earned All-Western Athletic Conference first-team honors in the 100-meter and 200-meter events.
Despite his best efforts to stay healthy, several injuries and setbacks kept him from competing in Olympic track, said his wife, Brynley Farnell. The two were married in 2023 in the Cedar City Utah Temple.
push bobsled
A friend invited Caleb Farnell to attend a bobsled and skeleton combine in Utah in the fall of 2024.
In bobsledding, he said, “When you bend over, you just feel the pressure on your back, like the sled is sucking you in. But you don’t realize how much it’s shaking and rattling and noisy.”
He is facing backwards, his head is down and he can’t see anything. He said he felt disoriented and confused the first time.
“I got the combine in October, and in November I thought, ‘Okay, I have 45 weeks until next season to completely change my body and essentially become more fit for this sport,’ and that’s what I did,” Farnell said. Also while training, he was asked to compete in several bobsled races in Park City, Utah.
After the combine and rookie camp, he was invited to compete in the U.S. Pushing Championships in Lake Placid, New York in September 2025. He was one of 12 push players selected for the World Cup team. After further training in Lake Placid, he was assigned to the team, but “fortunately, my team remains the same.”
Since November, he and his team have been competing in World Cup races in Europe, he said. He was able to return to Missouri for Christmas and his wife met him there.
“Bobsled was kind of a curveball, I didn’t really plan on it,” Brynley Farnell said.
She said she was grateful for the Vineyard, Utah, community, including the Latter-day Saint ward, while her husband was in Europe.
“Where we thought there would be a dead end, the Lord turned it into a different path,” Margene Farnell said of her son’s journey.
sliding at the olympics
Caleb Farnell and his team are in the Olympic Village of Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, and will be competing at the Cortina Sliding Center. He walked with the US delegation at the opening ceremony.
“It’s fun to watch players from other countries and it’s been fun so far,” he said.
Brynley Farnell said that when she and Caleb were dating, she remembers him having Paris 2024 as a goal on his dream board. Looking back, she has seen how the Lord has guided her path.
“My faith in how much God knows us as individuals has been incredibly strengthened,” she said.
When to watch: A bobsled or bobsled competition consists of four races measured in hundredths of a second. The team with the fastest total time is the winner.
The first two heats of the four-person bobsled race will take place on Saturday, February 21st at 10:00 am Italian time (2:00 am Italian time) at the Cortina Sliding Center in Cortina d’Ampezzo. The last two heats will start on Sunday, February 22nd at 10am Italian time (2am Mountain time). The fourth and final race begins at 12:15pm (4:15am Mountain).
