Kaillie Humphries aims for gold in new Olympic sport, monobob.

Most bobsledders approached their few precious training runs on China’s snow dragon as if they were college students cramming for a midterm, trying to learn as much as possible in a short time frame before the big test.

Kaillie Humphries of the United States was the only athlete among the field of 20 who skipped the final monobob training heats on Saturday at the National Sliding Center. She had the track — its nuances and tendencies — memorized.

On Monday, she will try to prove that her instincts were correct in the inaugural monobob event, in which one female athlete pushes and pilots her sled down the icy track.

If she wins, it will pause Germany’s run of golds in sliding sports at the Beijing Games. The country collected golds in all six of the previous sliding competitions.

Humphries, 36, would also tie the benchmark established by the snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis earlier in Beijing as the oldest American woman to medal at the Winter Olympics.

This is Humphries’s first Olympics representing the United States after an acrimonious split from Bobsleigh Canada, a program she had lifted to new heights and represented at three previous Olympics.

After winning a bronze medal in 2018, Humphries filed a formal complaint of mental and verbal abuse against Todd Hays, a coach for Bobsleigh Canada. She asked to be released from the program, initiating a protracted standoff.

Other countries recruited Humphries with the offer of immediate citizenship to compete in Beijing under their flag. Humphries instead waited out the lengthy process it took to become a U.S. citizen with no assurances that she would be granted a passport with enough time to compete at these Games.

“I’m becoming an American,” Humphries said before the Olympics. “Reminding myself of that made it much bigger and much more grand. At the end of the day, the Olympics is a race. It’s what I work for, but it’s not a part of who I am, and becoming an American is very much a part of who I am.”

She became one in December, allowing just enough of a window to qualify for the Winter Games.

“This has been a very hard fought battle to get here, and it definitely feels different,” she said.

Humphries and Elana Meyers Taylor, friends and rivals, have traded wins and places on the World Cup circuit for more than a decade. Meyers Taylor has collected two silvers and a bronze in past Olympics.

Meyers Taylor, 37, was named a flag-bearer for the United States before she tested positive for the coronavirus shortly after arriving in Beijing. She made it out of quarantine in time to to compete in the race.

“We have shared the podium since 2010 together,” Humphries said. “And we have this battle royale where I push her and she pushes me to be better. And it always worked.”

The I.O.C. announced monobob’s Olympic inclusion in 2018, but only for women. Men are still the only competitors in the four-man bobsled event.

“What I would love to see in our sport is that men get the opportunity to do monobob and that women get the opportunity to do four-man, and our sport grows and actually becomes very equal,” Humphries said.

Humphries and Meyers Taylor will have another opportunity to add to their medal totals. The two-woman bobsled event starts on Friday.