(September 1, 2026) – For our third athlete profile of 2026 (and the 52nd in the “Getting to Know…” series) we catch up with American bobsled pilot Lauren Brzozowski. In the past season, Lauren became the first American bobsled pilot to finish in the top three overall on the Europe Cup tour with a third place finish in monobob after scoring a bronze to open the season and five top fives overall.
Slider: Lauren Brzozowski
Hometown: Wyckoff, NJ
Team: USA Bobsled
Home Track: Lake Placid
Sponsors: Worldwide IP Solutions | Goffle Road Poultry | Professional Physical Therapy | 3 Chicas Mexican Kitchen | Pour City Roasters | Team Zozzy
Like we do to start all of these: What’s your favorite track on tour and why?
You know what’s so funny? I honestly think about this maybe once a month, especially during the summer because I try to go through the tracks I’ll be sliding in the season. So I might be eating my words later this year but I honestly do like Altenberg. I had a very good introduction to it last year, and that being said I’ve also been down it when it’s not been so fun. Like one mistake piles up and I see how easy it is to crash all over the place there.
But I also know it’s the first stop on the World Cup tour, so if there’s a chance I can, I’d love to slide it. It’s actually quite poetic because when I did break my foot before World Championships a couple of years ago that was the first race I was supposed to slide after that. So it meant a lot to learn it last year, and that’s why I think I’m also eager to see what I can do there.
I had a really good performance, and left there with one of the fastest downtimes of the entire weekend of competitions. It may not have shown with a podium but I did leave there with a fourth place finish!
Nick Tucker brought up that he thought there’s some Altenberg/Lake Placid crossover. Do you see that?
I’ve been afraid of Altenberg my entire career, and was like “I hope I never have to go do that.” But I think what I’ve learned is that when people say that, it makes you want to not want to learn the track. I think it’s a really fun track though, and I think the challenge and fear factor…it just feels like when you get down it feels like you’ve scored the winning goal in a soccer match in the last seconds. And for me it was the last big track that I had to learn. I’d already done Whistler, I’d already done Lake Placid, so this was the last of the trifecta of the three hardest tracks in the world I needed to nail, and I did it in a really incredible fashion!
So I think that’s what I would recommend before anyone ever does Altenberg, especially if you’re coming from North American Cup. At least get down Whistler and Placid, and you’re going to be fine. It’s a very technical track which I think plays to my skills. It’s definitely an incredible track, but maybe not the most sunshine-esque environment! It’s very gloomy in Altenberg, and I’ve got some very interesting memories there, because after I broke my foot all I could do is drive around and find a little café to have an Americano at, and that was about it! I know that area quite well, so I think I’m a little biased, but I think as far as sliding goes it’s a very fun time. Plus the staff there is incredible.
Unrelated to the track itself, what’s your favorite town on tour to visit?
Honestly? I’ve always said this about St. Moritz: It feels the most like America, so I think that’s the one spot I’m always excited to visit because I know there’s so many fun things going on there and like the food is very comforting. They have pizza spots that remind me of home! Obviously, New York City is famous for our pizza and so whenever I can get a slice, I’m just like “this is fantastic!”
But honestly, a close second is probably going to be Cortina now, because I also spent a lot of time out in that Olympic Village during the Olympics. Even though I didn’t compete, I was in and out of the little town and I have incredible, incredible recommendations for there! I think I found the best Italian spot out of the tour stops that has the best Italian spot…I guess by default because it *is* in Italy but that’s probably going to be the best place to be when you’re not sliding!
The biggest city I found close to there is Venice, two hours. So if you ever flew to Venice you just take a two-hour drive and you’re in the Dolomites, which that alone is the craziest and coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. The way the sun can set on those rocks, it turns it pink. I don’t like doing any kind of exercise more than five seconds, but if you ever want me to do a week-long hike, I will go back to Dolomites and do that! That would be worth it for me, being in the mountains.
What’s been your favorite vacation you’ve taken?
Oh this is tough. Because you know, our sport, even though we get to travel the world it’s very much “work-work-work”. I feel like it’s very small windows when I do get to escape, and because I’m a pilot I have to do all the other stuff when I have downtime like adding to my strategy, or getting coffee or food.
But out of all the vacations I’ve done in my lifetime, I just did probably the best one with my family. We just went to France, and we did a giant bike ride, with a trip with a company called Backroads. They’re actually based in America but if you’re ever looking through a way to bike through the World, preferably via e-bike so you’re not working that hard, go with them! This isn’t sponsored, I’m just a big fan! But that’s probably been the best!
That’s a LOT of cardio for someone who doesn’t like to run for more than 5-10 seconds at a time!
I live with my parents, and this is my childhood bedroom I’m calling you from. And my mom will works in the office next to this room, so I’ll hear her taking her phone calls, and then she’ll come in at whatever time of day and bully me to get my bike workout in! I was like “I live in this house and you’re threatening me to work out more than I already do! I am the only professional athlete in this lineage!” And so to mess with her, I bought this USA Cycling top from Amazon for $30, and it looks fantastic! I wish I’d found it sooner, like if I could make my own speed suit that’s what it would look like! So I wore that on the second day to block the sun, and everyone loved it!
It was a really fun part of the trip, so France it is! Hopefully you’ll see me there in four years fighting like hell in the winter!
You spent a lot of time and were very successful as part of a relay team at Elon, is there a team aspect of that which translates to bobsled?
You know what? I think my position at Elon, for the majority of my career, not the whole career, but the majority of the career, I feel like I was put into the anchor leg position. My interpretation of who you pick for that is just who’s the most competitive. Sometimes it’s not the fastest kid on the team, but it’s someone who is used to that role with leadership and responsibility. And I think because I was always in a position where I felt like I was trying to be the workhorse of the team, I was trying to do all the events…I had a full scholarship so every weekend I was doing every event, whereas other people would specialize, which was something I wish I could do! I would be running laps, and I would just see people playing in the sandpit, because that was their position in the team. I was like, God, I just wish I didn’t have to run this long!
But I think that’s the part of the role from track, and then being that type of athlete on that team I think is what set me up for success in bobsled. Because I was kind of just like, “how much worse could it get?!” I’m running for 5 seconds, and to this day I still don’t know what I would choose: Would I rather crash in a bobsled, or run a 400 meter dash? I genuinely don’t know if I could pick what’s worse! I will say the crashing is horrible. One time…okay two times…I thought about quitting the sport because of how bad the crashes were. But I’m very happy to say I didn’t.
But I think that’s the part of track that makes you successful at this. It’s not just the speed, but it’s also the mentality. And lucky for me I’m no stranger to hard work and a lot of that is owed to the people that convinced me to do that position and that sport in the first place. So thank you to all my track coaches for that! (Shoutout to Coach Manzo!)
For what it’s worth, when you crash a bobsled there’s still not that much running!
You’re right! And I’m like “Why is that winning in this argument?!”
I don’t know if you know this, but I used to run in England before I came to bobsled! I used to run for Loughborough University, which is the number one track school in England. Which, to be fair, they have the same caliber of athletes over there just smaller teams of them! And I could be biased, but that was just my experience, but I was running with people that are even today on Team GB and representing Wales and Scotland even as alternates or core relay members.
Basically, I was studying a Masters in Marketing over there at Loughborough, and then I was running for them on the first team. COVID hit when I was there, and that’s why I kind of had to leave the country in the middle of my master’s program, and come back to USA. And that’s when bobsled was having tryouts, and I was like “Oh they’re online! So why not give it a go!”
You made your World Cup debut in St. Moritz, what was it like making your debut there?
For starters I came into that season…we’d all raced off for a position on the team. I not only earned a position on the team, which made me feel like “Okay, I’m ready. We’re living the dream!” I remember even just getting my kit, and trying on my uniform for the first time…and I mean, every time you try on a uniform, you feel like a superhero…but that was beyond any time I’ve ever tried one on, you know? So, that alone was so much excitement. But unfortunately, I was also the only athlete that was not fully funded that year, so I couldn’t do the full World Cup.
And that alone was really hard because I always want to be playing against the best in the world. That’s why I came here. So I think that was really hard. So to finally compete my heart out, do very well on North American Cup, and then get to make my debut at the halfway point of the season meant the absolute world!
And that was the first time I was really stressed about money in my life. I would wake up in bed freaked out about how am I going to make this season happen? And there was so much going on, I felt so alone trying to plan a season. So it was a really emotional rollercoaster to try to get there, so when I did there was so much going on in my head I didn’t plan out my travel correctly and showed up earlier than I should have! So I get there and I’m like “Okay, I’m going to start sliding immediately!” and the people at the St. Moritz track were like “No, there’s too many sleds” and we were only going to have a couple of people from our team slide this week. And I was like “Wait, I’m spending all this money to be here early and you’re saying I can’t slide?!”
But what ended up happening was that one of our other athletes’ rental wasn’t ready yet so I was able to get on the track early, and that alone I think is why I had the performance that I did. I think that adds to it, I was otherwise only going to have two days to learn this track then compete on television?! So I got really lucky that I got to slide the week before the race. The nerves settled down a lot more. At the same time, I Just didn’t allow myself to let myself how big the moment was. I was just like “I love to compete, I want to race my heart out and all I want to do is be proud of the performance!” They were like “The debutant going off first in St. Moritz!” and I did NOT know that in St. Moritz out of all the tracks in the world you never want to go off first because it’s a manmade track so as the sun rises the ice melts, so the sleds that go off later are a little quicker. But I was out there like “I’m going to win this race!” and I got like second to last, and my coaches were like “we should have told you, you had no chance.” I drove so well, and for me that’s the best thing about that experience. The stuff I had going against me still didn’t take away from the experience and doing what I love which is competing against the best and competing my heart out!
They talk about the cameras and lights, did you notice that while you were walking up to the start?
I remember back then…I think it’s the track kid in me…I very much like to get comfortable in the environment before I have to race so I like to be there super early. So I got to see the TVs and the cameras and the fans and the sleds, and so just kind of having a picture in my mind of…we call it visualizations. You do visualizations as an athlete for more than just the run you’re about to take down the track. It’s also envisioning the moment, what you’re wearing, can you feel your gloves? Can you feel the temperature? It’s all these things that can help you get more acclimated to the day.
So I think it’s helped me in my career be able to focus on just the task ahead and not everything outside. But I mean, it gets hard. That was probably the first year I really learned that. But it’s very exciting. And that’s actually something I think about a lot now ever since I heard I might be able to move up to that tour again . Because, I’ve never done the whole World Cup. I don’t know what that’s like. I don’t know if those kind of nerves can get to me, but at the end of the day, that’s part of just going for it. You just get to learn from those experiences! So hopefully I can report back and say “Oh my god, the camera’s not distracting!” Also, the helmet helps with that, because it cancels out the noise quite well!
Do you have any pets?
No! I used to have two cats and a dog, but we are now a petless household. But they were good to us.
Honestly today before this call I was next to a Petco and I was like “You know what? I have no money but I’d waste it on a cat and see what happens!”
One of my newest sponsors is Goffle Road Poultry, it’s a chicken farm and they have turkeys and bunnies and whatever. It’s my dad’s cousin who runs it, we call him Uncle Joey, and I call it “Joey’s Chicken Farm”. But when we were kids, we’d get a chicken from them for dinner, and me and my siblings would go into the back of the barn and look at the animals. And I’ve always wanted a bunny. My dad grew up with chickens and bunnies, and just one time I want to take one home!
So Joey is like “I’ll sponsor you for the season! Do you want me to throw a rabbit in the mix?!” and I was like “Yes!” So I picked up my own black bunny rabbit and I called him Shadow and I brought him home. And he gave me a whole bunch of feed as well! And my dad came out and was like “Oh no…” and I was leaving for tour the next day! So I was like “I’m going to keep him and you know how to take care of him already!” and we all fell in love with this rabbit.
But a few days into my season of sliding I find out that Shadow’s gone to my dad’s friend Doug, who has a farm and that Shadow will be really happy there. And not even a few weeks ago I found out that maybe shadow just went back to Joey’s farm! Still waiting on clarification…but I’m hoping he’s living his best life!
When the season ends, what do you like to do to relax?
Literally every time I come home the first week I’m just going to see sponsors. All my sponsors are from my hometown so I’ll show them all the medals I’ve won, give them updates about the season, what next year can look like. I answer all the questions, thank them…and I’m very lucky, because all my sponsors have been in my hometown. So I have like a coffee shop, and a Mexican restaurant, and an intellectual property firm who’s been incredible to me. They’re called Worldwide IP Solutions.
I always visit them the first week or two. Then I’m also making my rounds to see family, so it’s crazy. I always say that’s the busiest time of year for me, because I’m literally just going to see the people I care about and going around to say thanks. But half my family lives in New York City, so I also get to try to get out there every once in a while as well. And I always find out everyone’s getting engaged when I come home! I’m like, “How long was I gone?” Like it feels like I woke up from like a 30-year coma, then everyone’s got new stuff going on! So, that’s kind of the fun part about being home.
And I guess that’s really what I do. You know, bobsledders don’t have the biggest budget, so whatever is friendly to that is also probably why it seems so boring and chill. But that’s been my MO over the past six seasons or so: I just come home and see the people I love.
What is your pre-race routine like?
Honestly, it starts the night before, and maybe even two days before. Maybe I’m crazy, but I always think…so let’s say today’s Thursday, and I’m racing on Friday. The sleep I get on Wednesday is what’s going to affect me on Friday. So it’s like, that’s a big part of the prep, just making sure I’m sleeping enough and eating well. Maybe I had to hit the sauna, who knows. Basically, what I do in those two days will give me the confidence to keep going with my routine for the race day. And then also I’m packing my bags like a crazy person!
Once you get to the track…I try my best to get a track walk in, even if I’m just kind of jogging through half the track and I walk back up, it’s a really good warm-up. Then doing like three mind runs if I can in between my warm-ups. That takes like 40 minutes. And then I’m also crazy…I call myself a nervous Nancy, because I get into the room so early to put my gear on and I just bundle up like some person with like 20 layers with my hat on, and like my makeup’s melting down my face.
And like, I’m scared a lot of the time! I’m scared a lot of the time! I hate being late, I don’t know if they pronounce my name differently all the time in Europe. I say Brzozowski (Bruh-z-ow-ski), I’ve heard Brzozowska (Bru-ch-uh-fff-sk-aah). Like that’s nothing close. And honestly our coaches are pretty great. They’ll text in our chat something like “Alright, ten minutes until the start! Lauren, you’re probably going off at like 10:15!” Which is very helpful. But that’s why I’m always just in there, ready well before the time! And that’s why you need more support, like you need support as an athlete from your coaches and your teammates and having just someone calmly nodding like “Yeah, I got your sled! It’s flipped, it’s good! You made it through parc fermé!”
Because I’m not used to that. I feel like being on a lower tour…we call it the Wild Wild West for a reason! Like there’s no rules! And you’re training someone how to not get you disqualified within a week of sliding at times! So you can’t expect them to know, like, “Hey, once the sled comes down the finish line, don’t touch the runners or it’s going to disqualify you!” Those are weird facts you wouldn’t expect someone to know! So that’s a lot of anxiety-ridden stuff, and that’s why I’m not allowed to have coffee anymore before I slide!
Who made the decision that you’re not allowed to have coffee?!
It was a me decision! You’ll see me randomly put my hand up right before I’m about to go to see if I am shaking. If my hand is moving a tiny bit vs a ton I’m like “Okay…we’re probably ready to rock and roll!”
For two-woman days I do not have any coffee and I do not do any social media. Ever. It’s very serious for me. But for Monobob days? I’ll have a cold brew is arguably the most caffeinated coffee on the market. So if im looking to have a bad time I’ll have two cold brews! So Monobob and two-woman days are different race preps, but very much anxiety-ridden to an extent.
And then I have to put on a brave face for my brakeman, which is the one thing I really appreciate about whatever’s going on in my brain, I’ve been able to pull myself together every single time. Because if they’re up there nervous it’s like “It’s okay, I got you…” It’s cool to be able to step up like that now. Like I’m 29 now, so I feel like I’m very much an adult or at least getting there. And I have to really kind of be like a mom on the team now because everyone coming in is like five years younger than me just want them to have fun and feel safe.
If you weren’t sliding, what do you think you’d be doing with your free time?
Honestly, before I went with this route I really had a passion for crisis PR. I really liked the marketing side and public relation side of things. I remember every year I’d apply for the Ketchum Challenge. They’re one of the top PR agencies in the world. They’ve done some really creative things. So they’ve had a challenge where they give you a thing…I remember one was like “Here’s a beef jerky brand that we’re trying to promote. How would you sell that to the public?” So I’d submit all my work and comment on other work and try to get to the top of the leaderboard just in hopes that I could get an interview with this company. Because I really wanted to do creative stuff. But honestly the only reason I did that in college is because I could not find the time to study cinematography.
Because I’m an athlete…just trying to get photos or videos and then editing them…being a track athlete I didn’t have time in the day to get the content done. So that’s really why I switched to PR, because it was a little bit of everything. But since I was a kid I wish I was working in, the movie scene and making my own movies. I think that’s why TikTok has been so great, because I get to make my own little movies every day!
Is there some kind of crossover from your love of PR and cinematography? Because you’ve got a very robust social media presence with that!
Honestly, I think it definitely played to my advantage. I will say I got very lucky because when I did switch…basically I have a learning disability and the best way I can explain it is it’s not like ADHD. It feels like it, but it’s not. But there’s like a plate, and it’s like a memory plate, and whenever I try to understand more information, if there’s too much it falls off the plate. So it’s been a thing I’ve dealt with my entire life. It’s very “fun” to navigate, but because of that I have to learn the sport and many things in a lot of creative ways.
Originally, being on TikTok at a time where the market wasn’t that saturated…there wasn’t that many people on there and the strategy on there was favoring, smaller and shorter videos. The reason I started doing well on social media is because I was just trying to remember what I was learning, and I thought it would be really cool to teach the world about the sport that I was falling in love with every day but also trying to learn. Because it’s dangerous, and the moment I got in the driver’s seat I knew that there was going to be a chance I could hurt someone, right? Like, it’s not always just me in the sled, and that was a really, really hard thing…I always thought I would quit if that ever happened. Which again, I’ve been very close, but because of that I definitely have a new appreciation and understanding of that whole side of things. And being away from my family, I wanted to have videos they could keep up with me, so it was really just to document how I was learning and then also share with people I love what I was up to.
So because of that, now I have the nickname Professor Zozzy. I love when people call me Zozzy because I know that they most likely recognize me from those videos. It’s really great for branding, and I don’t know if you know how this goes, but imagine you’re at the grocery store, and someone calls you by your real name and you’re like “I don’t know who you are!” But if they call me Zozzy it’s like “Oh my God you’re a fan! You get it! Do you like bobsled as much as I do?!”
The world is so weird, like I’ve never made an Olympics and there’s people who are very successful and I’m sure it’s mind-boggling to be like “How the hell does someone get a following off teaching a sport?!” and I get that too, but I really do love it. And you know, the people ahead of me are the reason I want to be great at it, so it’s a cool experience for sure, but I wish more athletes could utilize it. I don’t consider myself the best at it by any means, but I have a lot of fun and honestly the fanbase is a huge reason why I keep going. Because like when I broke my foot I was losing my mind, absolutely losing my mind, but the amount of support that came from sharing that…I have it all saved on a google doc on my laptop still. I can look back at it for strength!
What’s been your most difficult time in sliding sports?
There was just a two to three year stint where every day was just so hard, you know? Like emotionally…I had a really bad crash a couple years ago and someone I really care about got really hurt. It was right before Olympic trials, but it’s just a memory that makes me super emotional to this day: Knowing how serious the sport is, how dangerous it can be and how absolutely soul crushing it can be to crash with someone you care about.
That made me almost quit the sport and the only reason I didn’t is because I had an incredibly good group of athletes back in Lake Placid that were pushing me every day to get into the sled and get better 2 weeks after that crash. Para was actually there helping me slide when I didn’t have help getting the sled to the top of the track! They even filmed my runs at times so I could get coaching always. But that’s probably the hardest thing I’ve dealt with, just being in a horrific crash with someone I really care about and to this day I carry that experience with me and keep pushing myself to be a great pilot because of it.
That’s a whole aspect people don’t always think about, like as a pilot you’re in charge of someone else’s safety
And yeah, it’s like I feel like we say 99% of the crashes people will get back in but there’s always this random 1%. When I first got in the sled my coaches said to me “If you don’t think you can handle that then you shouldn’t be here.” And it’s a good and fair point, but it’s always something I knew could just destroy me and it nearly did. So I’m just lucky that I have an incredible sports psych, incredible teammates and everyone in the whole situation has been really kind to both of us. It’s definitely the hardest thing I’ve been through, and will always be the hardest thing.
And I wanted to bring up how serious the sport is, like how much more meaningful it is to see people help each other at the track. Because there’s smaller nations that don’t’ have nearly the support my team does and they’re expected to compete and get someone down the track safe, so it always means so much to me when I not only get help at the track but I can take the time to help someone else and they’re like “You’re not even on my team!” It’s really the community in the sport which is what keeps it going and making sure we both help ourselves but other people from other countries getting the sled to the start line and across the finish.
On the happier side of the coin, what’s been your best sliding sport memory?
Probably my favorite memory…and there’s so many…I was traveling with the Netherlands team last year and I realized a little later in the game that I was trying to get to be in the top three overall in Monobob on Europe Cup, which nobody in the history of USA Bobsled has ever done.
I retired my two-woman sled, there was no reason to keep sliding with that and save that money and use it to continue in Monobob and try to get that title. One of our athletes that we were traveling with got hurt and ended her season early…I call my dad and was like “Hey are you planning on coming to Europe still to help me get my sleds back? Could you maybe come out a little earlier and help me with this last race?” and he’s like “Yeah, of course!”
He literally landed not even 15 minutes after the Olympic team was named and I wasn’t on it. So just being able to like be with him during that moment meant a lot, but also knowing that we were about to go do this last race. And I got to teach him about the sport that I’ve been training in for the last six years. And he was like “I had no idea that this what it takes! I just kind of thought you showed up…” and I’m making him flip sleds and we’re moving the sled to the line and everything!
The Netherlands team is just some of the best athletes I’ve gotten to work with. Raul [Van Harmelen] was taking photos on his little camera and like the last four photos he had on his camera he took of my dad and I in the last part of my race when I got third overall on tour.
So that’s probably my favorite memory, like not only getting to spend time on tour with my dad but making memories with the Netherlands team with people who just mean the absoulte world to me. So being on the lower circuits is nice, you get to learn from everyone and see what they go through, and I never would have thought I’d get to do that with my dad.
Then we went to watch the Olympics after, we saw Elana win gold which was like our last hour there, and seeing her do that was amazing!
So you saw that and then just left?
That’s what happened! We literally saw her win and then caught the next flight back!
This is year two of your calendar, tell us how it came to be!
I’ve been working with an incredible photographer over the past six years. Her name is Mikeisha Kelly-Reilly and she owns the company Mikei Media. I found her when I was running track and I was trying to promote myself more and go pro in track. I ran an event at the Armory in New York City, and found her on Instagram way back then. She wasn’t working that race I was in but when I made the bobsled team a year later I reached out to her and was like “Since we met I have become a huge fan of your work. Would love to team up is you ever consider have interest!” and she was like “I’m a huge fan of your stuff too! Let’s do it!” So ever since then she’s been like my biggest supporter in terms of documenting what I’m going through and everything. She’s really great at helping me impress sponsors with my content too!
And so it was her idea to do the calendar! The team was cutting funding for my role, so I told her and she said “Let’s do the calendar as a way to raise some money.” And I did not think I was going to sell more than maybe 30 calendars, and within the first month we got nearly 500! So if you’re selling the for $35 a pop or whatever, I was able to fund basically the entire season with that and the help from my sponsors.
So that’s how the calendar came about, basically just trying to fund me to see how close I could get to my first Olympic team, even though I knew it would be very hard. I knew going into that season that if someone got hurt that I was the only eligible pilot they could call up, so that alone was a big responsibility that I figured I could help the team most with. I had a responsibility to be ready if called upon, and if I am and they need me then that’s fantastic!
Because of all that, Mikei said we should do it again this year! And I was like “I don’t really know…” and she goes “No, I’m getting emails from your fans they are asking for it!” It’s a really cool calendar, very well thought out. My photographers are amazing, between Mikei and Sofie Fachin in Lake Placid. Sofie is my favorite photographer I’ve ever worked without there. She’s a product and portrait photographer and between her and Mikei they’re both so talented and I’m always very inspired and honored to be able to work with them in my career. So if you want to see what we cooked up for the calendar check out the merch page at TeamZozzy.org.