By The Canadian Press

Canada’s Olympic skeleton team features 2024 world champion Clarke, veteran Channell

Jan 21, 2026 | 8:35 AM

CALGARY — A couple of rookies and one veteran comprise Canada’s skeleton team for the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics.

Hallie Clarke is a rookie, but the 21-year-old from Brighton, Ont., brings international success from winning a world women’s championship in 2024 and a women’s world junior title in 2025.

Her Olympic aspirations began when she was a five-year-old figure skater watching the Canadian ice dance duo Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir skate in the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver.

“In that moment I think I realized this is what I want to do. I want that to be me,” Clarke said Wednesday in Calgary. “The sport changed, but the dream never did.”

Jane Channell of North Vancouver, B.C., will slide in her third Olympic Games. The 37-year-old’s best Olympic result was 10th in 2018.

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Channell recalls watching skeleton in the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake City with her grandfather, who “turned to me with this look of utter disgust and said they were crazy.”

“That planted the seed of, at some point in my life, I knew I needed to try skeleton,” she said.

Channell considers herself a legacy of 2010 as she was able to pursue the sport on the Olympic sliding track in Whistler, B.C.

“Being from North Vancouver, it was just an hour and a half up the road. It made it really easy to be able to try,” she said.

“In the fall of 2011, I moved to Whistler without ever having tried skeleton before and said ‘this is what I’m going to do.”

Josip Brusic, 23, took up the sport less than four years ago and has quickly become an Olympian.

“It’s so thrilling,” he said. “If you can’t hear by the sound of my voice, I’ve been celebrating.

“I was screaming. I was just so excited for the last 24 hours since I got the news.”

Skeleton in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, runs from Feb. 12-15.

Canada’s last Olympic skeleton medal was Jon Montgomery’s gold in Whistler in 2010.

Canadian women’s skeleton came under pre-Olympic scrutiny when U.S. slider Katie Uhlaender accused Canada’s head coach Joe Cecchini of sabotaging her bid to compete in a sixth Olympic Games.

Canada withdrawing four of six women from a North American Cup race Jan. 11 in Lake Placid, N.Y., reduced the number of Olympic qualification points the 41-year-old Uhlaender earned for her win.

Denmark called on other countries to scrutinize Canada’s actions for competition manipulation.

Uhlaender ended up the third-ranked American woman, and on the outside looking in as the U.S. has two Olympic spots.

The International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation’s Integrity Unit investigated.

It stated Canada didn’t break IBSF rules, Code of Ethics or Code of Conduct and said “current IBSF rules allow National Federations to withdraw athletes at any time.”

Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton stated the decision to withdraw the athletes was for their welfare because they were young athletes competing in developmental races in Lake Placid a level below the World Cup circuit.

Three Canadian sliders who were in Lake Placid said that was true, but were also told by Cechinni’s assistant coaches that the move was to ensure Canada could send a second woman to the Olympic Games. Channell was ranked 26th in the world at the time.

Channell read from a prepared statement Wednesday.

“We have complete faith in our national sport organization and are appreciative of the IBSF for prioritizing a review and rendering a decision so quickly,” Channell said.

“Given this, we are putting this behind us. Hallie, Josip and I, along with our coaches, are now heading to these Games with a continued respect for the rules of our sport and commitment to fair play. We will not be commenting further on this issue until the conclusion of the Olympic Games.”

Uhlaender said in an X post Monday after the Olympic field was finalized “I wish there had been an proper investigation.”

Cecchini, a Calgary police officer, wasn’t at Wednesday’s announcement because he was on duty, said BCS high-performance director Jesse Lumsden.

“You have to consider athlete safety, and when athletes crash, we have to take that as a high priority,” Lumsden said.

“At the same time, Joe is the coach of the Canadian skeleton program, period. His responsibility lies in the development, care, coaching, well-being of the Canadian program athletes. That’s his number one priority.

“People made some noise. People are upset. Some people took it upon themselves to leverage something that has to do with the technical part of the sport for personal gain to make noise.

“We were within the rules.”

Clarke, ranked 13th in the world, was sixth in her last two World Cup races. Channell ranked 25th among women. Brusic ranked 23rd among men.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 21, 2026.

Donna Spencer, The Canadian Press