By Mandy Taheri
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Flavor Flav isn’t just hyping Team USA this winter—he’s eyeing a future spot on it. The rapper and television personality, who made headlines for backing the U.S. women’s water polo team at the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, says he wants to start training with the hopes of eventually qualifying for the skeleton team.
But first he’s headed to Italy in February to crank up the volume for Team USA’s bobsled and skeleton squads, expanding his personal Olympic sponsorship roster. As the team’s official hype man, Flavor Flav will be whipping up the crowd and the athletes to push for gold medals in Cortina d’Ampezzo, he tells Newsweek via Zoom from Las Vegas while drinking a Capri-Sun.
“They seem like some real go-getters, and I really feel that they’re going to go out and get some medals this year,” he says.
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In addition to cheering and revving up the athletes, Flavor Flav has ridden with them, taking both a skeleton run and a bobsled ride down the Utah Olympic Park track last year—an experience that gave him his first real taste for the sport.
“Oh my God, that ride was so amazing,” he tells Newsweek, remembering his October skeleton run. Dressed in a blue race suit with stars on his arms, Flavor Flav snapped on his helmet, laid flat and went headfirst down the track in Park City. “I’m an adrenaline junkie, I was very excited,” he says, explaining that he hit 66 miles per hour on the track. “That was the height of my life right there,” he adds, noting that the experience convinced him he wanted to explore the sport further.
“I’m gonna train to do the full course because last time I did it, I only did half the course. But this time I’m going back, and they’re gonna train me to do a full course. And once I get good with that, then I wanna try to compete,” Flavor Flav says of his hopeful Olympic future.
He adds of aiming for a Team USA sled suit, “I’m gonna try...if they let me qualify, then I’m gonna go for it.”
Building a Rapport
Flavor Flav got involved with the team last fall after one of the members invited him for a bobsled ride. Since then, he says his hype work has proven effective with the team, pointing to his rapport with 28-year-old bobsledder Kaysha Love.
“I talked to Kaysha and I said, ‘Kaysha, listen, this year’s gonna be your year. You can do it, girl, you got this. I’m behind you all the way. Go Kaysha!’” he tells Newsweek, claiming that the conversation “helped her win her medal,” shortly after.
Love secured gold in the women’s monobob at the World Cup competition in Austria last November.
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Love, who also competed in the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing, says: “Niche sports like bobsled can be challenging to build hype around, but they often become some of the most exciting events at the Winter Olympics. So having someone like Flavor Flav take the time to learn, support and genuinely hype our sport is incredibly inspiring. When he came to Park City, I remember feeling an extra drive to push myself and really show him what bobsled is all about. His energy...gave me so much confidence and excitement.”
“Just like what I did with Kaysha Love, I wanna do that for the whole team,” Flavor Flav adds.
Encouraging More Sponsorship
When discussing this year’s team and the Games, he emphasizes the importance of sponsoring Olympic teams and his desire to bring more people and resources into the sport. He says what he’s learned most about Team USA is “it needs more sponsors than just me.” In his role, he both hypes up the team and financially supports them.
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“Team USA could be a whole lot more powerful and successful if these teams had sponsors. I’m trying to set a trend,” Flavor Flav adds, reiterating that these athletes are “busting their a** to make the United States look good.”
He is sponsoring the U.S. women’s water polo team until 2029, and while it’s up in the air for how long he is sponsoring bobsled and skeleton, or if he may eventually join the team, he said his next Olympic goal is to be a torchbearer for the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
Read more from Team USA's 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics hopefuls: Newsweek talks to figure skater Ilia Malinin and his squad, who are tipped for glory, skier Breezy Johnson tells Newsweek about returning to Cortina to face her fears, and brothers Matthew and Brady Tkachuk discuss putting U.S. hockey back on the map.
Joosep Martinson/International Skating Union/Getty
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