OLYMPIAN CORRALS HONOUR
Humphries named parade marshal
Kaillie Humphries has won two Olympic gold medals and a Lou Marsh Award as top Canadian athlete, but being named grand marshal of the Calgary Stampede parade is one of the greatest accomplishments of her career, says the local bobsled champion.
“I honestly don’t think anything can top this,” she said Wednesday. “I’m a product of this city. I literally go to the Stampede every year. It’s ingrained as part of who I am.”
Humphries was named the grand marshal for this year’s Calgary Stampede parade at a Wednesday morning reception, where she rode in, sitting at the back of a horsedrawn trailer in a bobsled, her gold medals around her neck.
The Calgary- born Humphries won gold medals in the two- woman bobsled at the Vancouver and Sochi Winter Games with teammate Heather Moyse. She won the Lou Marsh Award as Canada’s athlete of the year in 2014, the same year she became one of the first women to pilot a four- man bobsled team in a World Cup event.
“Kaillie is an incredible role model. She is confident and strong, and those characteristics have allowed her not only to focus on training but to reach her dreams and goals,” said Stampede president Bill Gray.
Humphries was an “easy choice” for the honour, said Gray, also because of her charity work and local connections.
“She embodies the Stampede’s values, specifically integrity and pride of place,” Gray said.
Humphries recalled coming to the parade when she was young, dreaming of this very honour.
“Literally, since I was four years old, my mom used to make us get up at like the crack of dawn … and sit there from 5: 30 on the sidewalk, and you’d wait for the parade. You had to get the good seats, that’s why we were there so early,” she said.
“The horses that come by and the floats that come by, I mean, when you’re really little you just want the candy, but at the same point when you grow up, you really start to realize what it all means, what it’s all about.”
With many new floats taking part this year, the parade will last about two hours, “slightly longer than your 53- second Vancouver track record finish,” Gray told Humphries. He joked that leading the parade would be very different than Humphries’ day job.
“Your mode of transportation will change from a sled to a horse,” he told her. “This may the hardest for you — I have to tell you, this is not a race.”
But riding a horse will be nothing new for Humphries, whose family lived on a farm with seven or eight horses.
“The history is so important,” Humphries said of the Stampede. “Through and through, I am a Calgarian.”
The 2015 Stampede is just one month away, as the parade kicks off July 3 at 7: 30 a. m.
Humphries follows Canadian icon William Shatner, who led the parade alongside Olympic speedskaters and honorary marshals Gilmore Junio and Denny Morrison in 2014. Astronaut Chris Hadfield, just a few months after returning from the International Space Station, held the honour in 2013 for the second time, having also led the parade in 2001.
Hadfield followed singer Ian Tyson in 2012, and “Man in Motion” Rick Hansen in 2011.
Now, Humphries said it’s an honour to serve in that role.
“Most people aren’t going to grow up thinking they want to be Calgary Stampede parade marshal, but I honestly did,” she said.
“To get that phone call and to be able to go back to that time when you’re four, five, six years old on the sidewalk, and to know that’s going to be me on that horse leading everything and starting it all off is truly a genuine experience, one that I honestly do rank very high on my list of accomplishments. Very different, but equally, honestly, just as good. Anytime you get to live a dream and have that come true, it’s extremely cool.”
I honestly don’t think anything can top this. I’m a product of this city. ... It’s ingrained as part of who I am.