But for the Ray Brook native, who races alongside Chevonne Forgan, the moment is a bit bittersweet. She’ll be without one of her biggest supporters.

Her father, Jim, who had been the reason she started luge, died of cancer in June 2024. While he never actually got to see Kirkby qualify for the Olympics, he had always told her that he knew she’d make it.

“Which was really nice to hear, but in the back of my mind, I couldn’t tell him, like, ‘oh, I don’t know, there is always a possibility that something happens,'” she said. “I just wanted him to die peacefully with that on his mind. But he already knew that I would go.”

Kirkby knows her father would be proud to see the slider that she’s become. While he can’t be at the Games, she wanted him to make the trip to Cortina, Italy, in some capacity.

On the inside of her gloves, Kirkby often writes a message that he sent her before his death. His words have included “I’d be overjoyed if you made the Olympic team,” and “Everything is going really, really good.”

“For me, it’s really important to have that message on my gloves because, unfortunately, he’s just not with me anymore,” Kirkby said. “He was always there. He was there until the final stretch, and it’s not his fault, like, he can’t be there.”

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A sliding journey

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Kirkby remembers the day she first discovered luge. She was riding in the car with her father, who bobsledded with the Air Force in the late 1970s, when they passed by a youth luge team practicing wheeled luge at the ski jumps.

“My dad just, they pulled over and asked them, ‘What are you doing?'” Kirkby recalled.

Soon she found herself taking part in that practice, and her love for the sport only began to grow.

Kirkby eventually started dedicating her time to luge, competing for several years as a singles slider on USA Luge’s junior and youth teams. Before her coach suggested taking a bit of a leap of faith by switching to doubles with Forgan during the coronavirus pandemic.

Before they made the switch, women’s doubles wasn’t an Olympic event, despite there being a men’s doubles competition at every Winter Olympics since 1964. It was a risky decision, but one they knew could bring them one step closer to their Olympic dream if the dice rolled in their favor.

And after the 2022 Olympics, the sport was added to the Games, giving the duo a shot at the Olympics.

They later became the first-ever U.S. women’s doubles luge team to make the U.S. National team and have since won numerous World Cup medals, including seven last season across the women’s doubles, mixed doubles and team relay events. During the 2025 World Championships, the duo earned a bronze medal in women’s doubles and a silver in relay.

Kirkby and Forgan also own a FIL World Cup crystal ball for her third-place overall finish during the 2025 season. While the duo has only earned one medal this year, they’ve finished every race inside the top five.

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‘Pin Queen’

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As well as having a passion for luge, Kirkby is pretty open about her off-ice love for ceramics.

With the possibility that she could make the 2026 Olympics, Kirkby wanted to blend the two together. That’s where she came up with the idea to expand on a long-standing Olympic tradition … pin trading.

She crafted thousands of handmade and hand-painted ceramic pins that she has already brought to Italy to trade amongst her fellow Olympians.

Kirkby has been dubbed the “Pin Queen” by some media outlets and her peers. It’s a nickname she’s a big fan of, while noting that she’s never heard of another Olympian who has handmade their own pins before.

But with each Olympic event essentially spread out all over Italy, through six different locations, Kirkby had to partner up with other U.S. Olympians to help hand out her pins.

“I think I was able to make up for having my inside traders be able to distribute the pins while they have that reach that I would normally have,” she said.

Some of the people that Kirkby has partnered with include women’s hockey player, Hillary Knight, and cross-country skier, Jessie Diggins.

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Game time

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Kirkby is excited to make history as part of the first-ever U.S. women’s doubles team to compete at the Olympics, but she wants to be the first of many.

“I’m hoping that after these Games we will be able to get more sleds to participate in women’s doubles,” she said.

But for these Games, Kirkby said she and Forgan are just focusing on what’s going to work best for them, especially as first-time Olympians.

“We don’t know exactly what to expect, and all we can do is ask our teammates about their experiences,” she said. “However, the previous Games were not something that’s going to be like these. It’ll be more open, more friendly, no masks, hopefully. So we’re just gonna go and try and figure it out, but I’m prepping and just getting ready for it.”

The duo is vying to earn USA Luge’s first medal since 2018, something Kirkby said would be a huge accomplishment for the U.S. squad.

“(It would) show that a lot of our hard work has been paying off and showing itself, and it would be a great demonstration of our efforts for the last decade or so,” she said.

Luckily for them, the duo has a decent amount of experience competing at the newly rebuilt Eugenio Monti track in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. They tested out the Italian track in March and in November, but Kirkby said it had been a different experience each time.

“Believe it or not, we race differently, depending on the conditions of the ice, whether it’s soft or hard, or how they shape the ice. It fluctuates, like the first time we were there,” she said. “The first runs were frosty; they were trying to make it really easy for us to get down, and by the end, we had really good ice, but it was so thin. When we came for the first time, it was thicker. It was more on the walls, and it would be more pushy.

“And the follow-up when we went after the bobsled/skeleton, the curves were a bit more cushioned, because that’s what the ice master tries to do in order to push out those big guys,” she added.

With the Games set to kick off soon, Kirkby said she’s curious how the ice will be, but she knows it will be different.

The Olympic Opening Ceremony in Milan, Italy, takes place Feb. 6. There is a six-hour forward time change from Milan to the U.S. Eastern.

Men’s singles will kick off on Feb. 7 and 8. Women’s singles is Feb. 9 and 10. Men’s and women’s doubles is Feb. 11 and the team relay is Feb. 12. To view the full Olympic schedule, visit tinyurl.com/2wppx4dm.