Hempfield grad Jasmine Jones joins list of former track athletes competing in bobsled, eyes 2026 Winter Games

A bathtub going down a roller coaster.

Getting inside a trash can and rolling down a hill.

Those are just a couple of metaphors Hempfield grad Jasmine Jones uses to describe riding in a bobsled. This winter, Jones has her sights set on riding at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.

Her quest begins Nov. 23 when the two-woman bobsled World Cup season gets underway, also in Cortina. The United States Bobsled and Skeleton Federation will monitor its athletes’ performances over a two-month span and then, on Jan. 19, announce the Olympic team.

“I feel like, for me, I just remember the training I went through and trust that, trust that I have the foundation that I need,” said Jones, who turned 29 in September. “Just trusting everything my coaches have instilled in me and knowing what I can do.

“I’m excited for it, especially that type of environment. I thrive off that.”

Before taking up bobsled at the end of 2018, Jones thrived as a track and field athlete.

As a senior at Eastern Michigan, she was part of the Eagles’ Mid-American Conference champion 400-meter relay team and was named the MAC’s indoor most outstanding performer, winning the 200 and 400. During her junior season, she won MAC indoor gold in the 200 and outdoor gold in the 400 relay, 200 and 400.

Her prowess in track and field — specifically her combination of speed and power — is what caught the eye of USABS coaches.

Recruiting track and field athletes for bobsled is becoming more common. Perhaps the two most recognizable track stars to cross over are sprinter Lauryn Williams, a Rochester grad, and hurdler Lolo Jones.

Williams earned a silver medal in the two-woman bobsled at the 2014 Sochi Games. Coupled with the silver she took in the 100 meters at the 2004 Athens Games, she is one of only six athletes in history to earn medals in the summer and winter Olympics.

As satisfying as it would be to earn a medal in Italy, Jones will be ecstatic to simply make the team. Her journey has been filled with more twists and turns than the icy tracks where she competes.

During her senior season at EMU, Jones was still deciding if she wanted to go pro in track and field when she was contacted by five-time Olympic medalist Elana Meyers Taylor, who floated the idea of Jones trying bobsled. Jones took the plunge and made the national team in 2019.

By the following year, she had her eye on the 2022 Beijing Winter Games, but circumstances intervened.

March 2020, of course, brought the onset of the covid-19 pandemic. Jones also was expecting a child. She returned to training four months after the birth of her daughter, Jade, but faced an uphill climb.

“It was a lot going on,” she said. “With my daughter at the time … I was still working in Pittsburgh. I was running through my parking lot, trying to figure out different ways to train.”

She missed out on Beijing, but Jones found a potential on-ramp to Cortina in 2023. She joined the Air Force World Class Athlete Program, for which she would serve in the military — conveniently based in Lake Placid, N.Y., where elite winter athletes train — and also be able to devote time to her sport.

Being in the program also helps with care for her now-4-year-old daughter. Her mother, Christine Vincent, lives with her in Lake Placid, and fellow athletes also take turns caring for Jade. Jones said some of the athletes even show up at Jade’s school to support her in special events.

“It feels like she is being raised with the Olympic Village,” said Jones, who works in supply and materials management for the Air Force.

With the benefit of what she called her first real offseason of training, Jones is confident in making the Olympic team. She serves as a brakeman in two-woman competition, riding in the back of the sled and providing support for the pilot.

The first proving ground was the so-called push championships. Push championships, in which pilots and brakemen compete individually, evaluate the speed with which the athlete pushes the sled over 50 meters.

Jones won the U.S. women’s brakeman competition in September, posting a time of 11.112 seconds.

During World Cup competition, in which Jones has three bronze medals over the past two years, she will be paired with different pilots so coaches can evaluate which duos are most effective. Regardless of her pilot, Jones’ job as the brakeman remains the same.

“You have to provide a level of trustworthiness with your pilot,” she said. “Your pilot is relying on you to make sure the runners are on and everything is set up because they’re focusing on getting down the track as fast and safe as possible.

“So it’s up to the brakeman to make sure other things are taken care of so (the pilot) doesn’t have to stress about anything else. You want your pilot to have a clear mind and just focus on trusting you to do your job.”

The brakeman also is responsible for slowing the sled to a stop at the finish. Come February, Jones hopes to stop at the top of the medal stand in Cortina.

Though going upwards of 90 mph in a sled on an frozen, serpentine track seems a far cry from sprinting, Jones said the feeling isn’t all that different.

“That initial moment, getting started, it’s kind of the same as track,” she said. “That adrenaline just gets heightened because whenever you push and get in, you’re just hoping as you’re flying down the track, hoping you can get a medal.”