Q&A: Erin Jackson went from roller derby to the Olympics. She’s racking up college degrees — but wants another gold.
Jackson, the first Black woman to win an individual Winter Olympic gold medal, is studying for a future in biomechanics and winning kickball championships in her downtime.
Erin Jackson made history during the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, becoming the first Black woman to win a Winter Olympic gold medal in an individual sport.
The 33-year-old got her start in in-line skating and roller derby before making the transition to speed skating in 2017. With only four months of on-ice experience, she qualified for the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in South Korea.
“I was doing a ton of different ice sessions,” Jackson said. “You know, if my team was out there once a day, I would try to fit in another one or two sessions, and I was skating with the little kids doing everything I could do to try to figure out ice skating.
“When I went to the Olympic trials in 2018, I didn’t even tell my family I was going. I was just going to have a little checkup race or something, and I ended up making teams. So, it was more of a surprise than anything.”
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After winning gold in the women’s 500-meter speed skating event at the in 2022, she finished fifth in the 500-meter race and sixth in the 1,000 meters at the Milan Cortina Olympics earlier this year.
Jackson recently sat down with The Inquirer to discuss post-Olympic life, what’s next for her, and more.
Q: You started with in-line skating and roller derby. Did that help with the transition or did it hinder it?
A: Growing up as a skater, it helped a lot because I had already built a lot of those skating muscles and the skating mechanics. But then on the other side, they’re really different, skating on wheels vs. skating on ice. So, there were a lot of habits I had built from my years and years of roller skating that I had to kind of unlearn — and [there are] things I’m still trying to unlearn now. So it’s a never-ending process trying to perfect [my] ice skating technique.
Q: You made history as the first Black woman to win a gold medal in a solo winter sport. And you also became the first Black woman to be the flag bearer. What does all of this mean to you?
A: I guess it’s bittersweet, because I didn’t realize that it was a stat or anything like that until I saw a headline a few days after the gold medal. And, yeah, it was kind of weird to me. I was hoping that maybe we can get a second and a third and a fourth coming up pretty soon after.
And with the flag bearer thing, you know, Elana Meyers Taylor, she was voted as the flag bearer in 2022, but unfortunately she was sick. So she wasn’t able to do it. I feel like she should have been the first person to do that, and I follow her footsteps. But hopefully we can help inspire more people to get out and try winter sports.
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Q: And what’s post-Olympic life looking like for you so far?
A: It’s been fun. I’ve been going on a lot of trips. I got home to Florida for a little bit, hanging out with my friends. I’m a really big sleeper. I like to take naps. I like to hang out with my pets on the couch. I love pickleball.
And also a few of us on the speed skating team, we’re on a recreational kickball team, which is really fun. We’ve done four seasons. We won the championship a couple times. Last year, we got fourth, so we’re going to come out with a vengeance this year to get back up to the top.
Q: How do your skills from speed skating transfer over to kickball?
A: We’re pretty fast over there. We kind of zip around the other competitors. They either think we’re athletes or military or something. Sometimes they’ll ask, and we’ll explain what we do, but we just go out there to have a good time.
Q: What’s something that you wish people asked you about more often?
A: I think one of the main things that is really important to me is school and education. I have a materials engineering degree from the University of Florida, and that was before I started ice skating. Since being in Salt Lake City, we have a partnership with a community college. So I’m able to go to the college for free, which is really nice. And since living in Salt Lake, I picked up a degree in computer science, and I’m in the middle of two more.
I want to put all that together in biomechanics. And I studied prosthetics when I was in college for a little bit. Being on teams with Comcast and connecting with the Paralympic athletes, it’s really brought that back to the forefront of my mind because I really want to work on prosthetics.
Q: So, where do you see yourself four years from now?
A: Four years from now, hopefully, right here again with another gold medal. I’m planning on skating another four years, and then after that start working.
