A 29-year-old Florida native and lifelong rollerblader became the first Black woman to win Team USA a gold medal in speed skating Sunday.
Erin Jackson earned her first Olympic medal in the women’s 500- meter speed skating race at the Beijing Games, an event Team USA has not won since 1994. Jackson finished her lap in a mere 37.04 seconds.
It may seem unlikely that a skater who spent her life on rollerblades would be an Olympian on the ice, but Jackson quickly became a gold medal favorite. She made her Olympic debut four years ago in Pyeongchang, having switched to ice skating roughly a year earlier.
