Mom: Sandra Kinney
Athlete: Chris Kinney
Sport: Bobsled
The journey to make the Olympic team is a rollercoaster ride often with financial burdens we rarely consider. Athletes need help from a lot of different places and Team USA bobsledder Chris Kinney is no different.
Even when Chris is training 1,200 miles from home there's always been someone a quick call away, who has championed each and every adventure.
His mom, Sandra Kinney.
"He always wanted to be in the Olympics since he was a little boy," Sandra recalls, "When the Olympics came to Atlanta, that was when Chris decided he would go to the Olympics in some way or another. We thought it would be in track."
Chris' mom can't remember many times where her only child, Chris, wasn't running or flipping.
"He started playing, well jumping out of his crib when he was 18 months old," she described.
"He’s been an interesting child, it’s why I only had one," Sandra explains with a chuckle.
Then track and field captivated him and Chris was an all-American by his senior year at Georgetown.
But no one saw his next adventure coming.
"When he told me he was going to quit his job and try out for the U.S. Bobsled team we thought he was crazy...One of the drivers told me four man bobsled was the equivalent of getting four large men in a bathtub together," she explained.
Sandra was on an airplane when Chris texted her that his Olympic dream had been realized.
She expects it to be very overwhelming when Chris competes representing the United States in front of the entire world.
"It's been a long road. We're excited," she described.
