As of Tuesday, bobsledder Jasmine Jones is officially headed to the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. She’s based in Lake Placid, New York, but trains in Park City part of the year.
Jones has always had Olympic dreams. During her senior year at Eastern Michigan University in 2018, she was ready to sign with an agent to help her train to get to the Games — but for track and field.
Around the same time, however, Team USA bobsled coaches saw Jones’ sprinting stats and wanted to recruit her. It’s the way most bobsled and skeleton athletes find their way to the sports.
“I thought it was a joke. I thought it wasn't real. And my strength coach is the one that kind of encouraged me, like, I think you should check this out,” Jones told KPCW in the fall.
After going to bobsled push camps, Jones switched gears and has been working to get to the Olympics.
She missed out in 2022 as her daughter was born just a year before. Jones tried to push herself to be ready, beginning training at just four months postpartum.
“My body's not ready, but I just kept trying to push forward, and I probably should have listened more to myself, of just slowing down,” she said. “It was a lot, especially, like, physically and mentally, because I wanted to be where I was before.”
Jones said she struggled to juggle her parental duties on top of work and bobsled training. To help bring stability to her life, she joined the U.S. Air Force World Class Athlete Program in 2023.
“Enlisting definitely was the change that I needed. I wanted to have better security for me and my child, as well as being able to fully focus on bobsled,” she said.
Jones also faced some stigma for being a mom and an athlete. Although things are changing, in the past, female athletes with kids weren’t allowed to continue competing. But by the time Jones had her daughter, there were other mother-athletes to look up to.
Some are also on the Olympic roster this year, including bobsledders Kaillie Armbruster Humphries and Elana Meyers Taylor, as well as skeleton athlete Kelly Curtis.
“It just shows that we're stronger than what people may think,” Jones said. “I'm excited to see more women come back to sport and listening to their bodies and just pushing that limit.”
Now, Jones feels she’s a better bobsledder than she was before her pregnancy. She said she’s looking forward to the adrenaline rush that comes with competing at the highest level.
“The type of athlete I am, I feed off of, like, the adrenaline. I feed off the fans, the hype and everything,” Jones said. “It's like a fire that's burning within me that, like, I'm ready to go because everything has built me to this point where I'm trusting myself, I'm trusting my coaches.”
Jones is also joining one of Team USA’s most diverse Winter Olympic rosters. According to the Associated Press, the 2018 Games were the most diverse with 21 athletes of either Black or Asian descent, which was about 8% of the team.
Most of the sliding sports feature women of color and Jones is one of four Black women on the U.S. bobsled’s six-woman team.
The Milan Cortina Olympics are Feb. 6 to 22.
