In the moments before she made the 2018 U.S. Olympic speedskating team, Erin Jackson wondered whether she could get herself onto the ice without falling down. She was in the process of converting from inline skating, and after just four months on ice skates, she still found some of the finer points of the sport challenging.
“I was a mess,” she says, laughing. “I needed someone to hold me up.”
Jackson shocked everyone—especially herself—with her performance during qualifying. She grabbed a spot on the team and then treated her trip to PyeongChang, where she finished 24th out of 31 in the 500 meters, as a learning opportunity. Now Jackson, 29, isn’t looking to further her education at the Games; she’s looking to win. In 2021 she took first at four of the year’s eight World Cup races in the 500—becoming the first Black woman to stand atop the podium—and earned medals two more times. She’s now the U.S.’s best medal hope in the sport.
