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GATOR OLYMPIAN >> ERIN JACKSON
ICE, ICE, BABY!
OLYMPIC SPEEDSKATER AND UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA ALUM
Erin Jackson WRITTEN BY MONICA HUMPHRIES
Erin Jackson travelled over 7,400 miles to Pyeongchang, South Korea, to participate in the 2018 Winter Olympics. This adventure came as a surprise after only training for ice speedskating for four months. Before this past fall, Jackson, from Ocala, would have been found on the roller rink instead of the ice rink. Since 2012, inline speedskating was her sport. However, she gave ice speedskating a shot, and it landed her in the Winter Olympics. “Originally I thought of going to this competition [the Olympic trials] and use it as a checkpoint in my training. I didn’t really come in thinking I was going snag one of these spots on 130 |
OUR TOWN MAGAZINE
MARCH/APRIL 2018
the Olympic team, it just sort of happened that way,” Jackson said in an interview with Rolling Stone. Jackson originally intended to compete in the 2022 Winter Olympics, but instead she qualified for the 2018 Olympics. At the Olympic trials in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Jackson beat her personal record and landed a spot in the Olympics. In speedskating it’s impressive for athletes to drop a few hundredths of a second. Jackson dropped two-tenths of second, which put her time at 39.04 seconds for the 500-meter race. Beyond that accomplishment, Jackson will be the first African-American woman to compete in Olympic long-track skating. “Something that you might notice if you’re someone who watches the Winter Olympic Games is that there are not a lot of people of color participating. But I’m looking forward just to being someone that children and people of color can look to, and maybe make them say ‘maybe this is a sport that I can get PHOTOGRAPHY: AP/VADIM GHIRDA