--- description: Find out why Erin Jackson is on TIME’s 2026 Closers list. title: Erin Jackson Made Olympic History. Now She Wants to Make Her Sport More Accessible image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4b9b65ea8e00a5a0/6998ccf9c8dcb450eab50cc7/time-closers-2026-erin-jackson-01.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Jan 27, 2026 # Erin Jackson Made Olympic History. Now She Wants to Make Her Sport More Accessible by [Alice Park](/author/alice-park/) ## Alice Park Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Senior Correspondent  Mike Coppola—Getty Images Erin Jackson likes to say dream big, execute small. In 2022, the speed skater and Florida native became the first Black woman to win an individual gold medal at an Olympic Winter Games—and while that feat alone is enough to define a career, she has even bigger plans ahead. Until her history-making win at the Beijing Olympics, Jackson wasn’t fully aware of the impact her accomplishment would have, particularly on other athletes of color. After she won the gold, videos and messages started flooding in from kids and parents who had watched her groundbreaking performance and wanted to learn more about the sport. “It’s cool getting these messages of \[kids\] skating and talking about what they want to do,” she says. “They inspire me.” Jackson knows firsthand that competing in the Games offers a powerful platform from which to lead by example. In January, the 33-year-old made her third U.S. Olympic team, and while training takes up most of her time, she’s already thinking about how she can continue to expand representation in speed skating after she retires. She’s currently working with Annette Diggs, the founder of Edge Outdoors, a Washington State-based nonprofit working to address health disparities affecting women of color by making wellness and outdoor sports more accessible. Jackson hopes to build a similar initiative in Utah, where she currently trains and where, as a result of the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, many of the best facilities for otherwise inaccessible winter sports are located. “The main barrier to entry for winter sports is cost,” says Jackson. “I honestly don’t know if I would have been able to continue in \[speed skating\] if I didn’t make the 2018 Olympic Team. Without those benefits, I couldn’t have afforded to keep training. So I’m looking forward to hopefully having more minorities involved in winter sports as soon as possible, and to ease the financial burden by creating more scholarship programs.” Jackson’s speed skating journey began on land, racing on inline skates—a path she aims to help other young athletes replicate. After starting out with a pair of plastic skates in her driveway, she progressed quickly; over a 15-year span, she won 47 national titles and 15 world championship medals. In February 2017, Jackson took her first tentative steps on the ice in speed skates—famously [captured on video](https://www.tiktok.com/@olympics/video/7462786575882013984 "undefined") by teammates—and nearly a year later, qualified for her first Winter Olympics in 2018\. In PyeongChang, she finished 24th but continued to improve her technique, adjusting to the skates’ longer blades and transferring what she had learned on land to the ice. Entering the U.S. Olympic Trials for the 2022 Games, Jackson was the top-ranked skater in the 500m event, but an uncharacteristic slip on the ice dropped her off the team. Her teammate, Brittany Bowe, who qualified ahead of Jackson, gave up her spot so Jackson could compete. Jackson paid back that generosity by racing fast enough to win gold. Such lessons in sportsmanship, perseverance, and discipline are what Jackson hopes to pass on to young people interested in speed skating. Knowing that there are only two indoor long-track speed skating ovals in the U.S. (in Utah and Wisconsin), Jackson hopes to introduce kids to skating the same way she discovered it—on inline skates, potentially through mobile skate carts that would visit different schools and allow children to try roller blades for the first time. For those who get hooked on the sport, Jackson’s goal is to steer them toward short-track speed skating, since it doesn’t require a special rink. And for those who want to switch to long-track speed skating, Jackson hopes to connect them with the proper equipment and programs to hone their skills further. “I want to expose people to different types of skating to see what they really enjoy,” she says. Already, when people ask Jackson about how to get started in speed skating, she connects them with skate makers so they can access the right equipment. As an inline skater, she recalls benefitting from a generous community of skaters who shared secondhand equipment. She envisions a similar network for speed skating equipment, which would widen access to the sport. “Representation is really important,” she says. “It helps to see someone like you doing something that you might not previously have thought of doing. I hope to be the face that others look to and think, ‘Let’s try a new sport.’ The more people we have, the better to keep the dominoes falling.” Erin Jackson Made Olympic History. Now She Wants to Make Her Sport More Accessible ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/closers-2026/7353446/erin-jackson/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/closers-2026/7353446/erin-jackson/"},"headline":"Erin Jackson Made Olympic History. Now She Wants to Make Her Sport More Accessible","datePublished":"2026-01-27T13:02:55.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-03T01:04:17.848Z","description":"Find out why Erin Jackson is on TIME’s 2026 Closers list.","url":"https://time.com/collections/closers-2026/7353446/erin-jackson/","keywords":["Closers 2026","list","franchise","Special Project","sponsorshipblock"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4b9b65ea8e00a5a0/6998ccf9c8dcb450eab50cc7/time-closers-2026-erin-jackson-01.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alice Park","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/alice-park/"}],"creator":"Alice Park","articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4b9b65ea8e00a5a0/6998ccf9c8dcb450eab50cc7/time-closers-2026-erin-jackson-01.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/closers-2026/","name":"Closers 2026"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/closers-2026/7353446/erin-jackson/","name":"Erin Jackson Made Olympic History. Now She Wants to Make Her Sport More Accessible"}}]}] ```