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It all seemed like a joke to Jadin O’Brien.
There was no reason for the 23-year-old Notre Dame track and field athlete to have the Milano Cortina Olympics on her radar. It only came to her attention a couple of years ago when future Olympic monobob gold medalist Elana Meyers Taylor sent her a direct message on Instagram about it.
The first time, it was ignored. The second, a message that read, “We would love to have you try out for bobsled!!!” was enough for her to take the bait.
Starting on Friday, O’Brien, who has only raced twice in her brief career, will take on the bobsled on the world’s biggest stage, pushing for Meyers Taylor in the two-woman event in Cortina, Italy.
O’Brien is a national champion in the indoor pentathlon three years in a row (2023-25) and is a 10-time All-American. The Olympics were on her bucket list for a long time, and she competed in the heptathlon trials for the Tokyo Games in 2021. She placed 12th and also finished seventh in the trials for Paris in 2024.
She never thought the Winter Olympics would be her gateway.
“It has really been a roller-coaster of events,” O’Brien said, per the Associated Press. “Everything’s happened so fast, but … I’ve kind of been conditioned to be able to handle new things very, very fast and then perform despite a lack of experience. So, it has been a whirlwind. I could never have predicted my life would turn out this way, but I’m incredibly grateful and I’ve loved every second of it.”
As a graduate student in August 2025, O’Brien finished fifth at the U.S. Championships, and two days later, she took on a 12-and-a-half-hour journey to Lake Placid, N.Y., to see what she is made of.
“It was insane,” Meyers Taylor said. “Not to get too patriotic or whatever, but I think bobsled is one of those traditionally American stories, American dream kind of stories because you can come from nowhere and come in and make an Olympic team. You could come from whatever background and have an opportunity to live your Olympic moment. That’s not true in a lot of sports.”
It wasn’t always destined for the start for O’Brien.
Despite jumping over hurdles set up by her track coach mother at 5 years old, she struggled to run or do normal kid things due to anxiety. She was later diagnosed with Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal Infections (PANDAS), and by the age of 10, things started to look normal again.
In college, she also had a tough career due to injuries including hamstring issues, a stress fracture and a sprained hand.
Her transition to boblsed wasn’t exactly easy, either. While training in St. Moritz, Switzerland, in January, her bobsled endured a bad crash as the front axle came off the sled, losing all control. O’Brien wasn’t able to move for a few moments, however, she and Meyers Taylor went on to race four days later.
“It was not easy getting back on the line to race in St. Moritz after that,” O’Brien said. “We were both very, very beat up. I decided to put my body on the line for ‘E’ because I felt that I had the best chance of getting her a top-10 finish. And I said, ‘You know what? Regardless of this helps or hurts me when it comes to Olympic decision-making, who’s on the team, I’m not going to let a regret linger in my mind.’ And so, I chose to compete.”
A week later, her Olympic fate was on the line. Meyers Taylor, along with the other pilots, including Kaillie Humphries Armbruster and Kaysha Love, were all guaranteed to be chosen by the U.S. selection committee, along with push athletes Jasmine Jones and Azaria Hill. It left three women for one more push spot.
O’Brien proved enough she deserved it.
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“My mouth, like, dropped,” O’Brien recalled after hearing U.S. bobsled coach Chris Fogt announcing the pairings.
“I had no idea that I was going to be named to the team. I really didn’t,” she said. “And I remember sitting there and just praying, ‘Lord, if this is your will, please let it happen.’”
O’Brien has a heck of a partner in Meyers Taylor, who broke through to win gold in the women’s individual monobob on Thursday. She came into the Milano Cortina games with three silver medals — two in the two-woman race (2014 and 2018) and monobob (2022) — as well as two bronze in the two-woman in 2010 and 2022.
The two will take on their first Olympic event together on Friday at 12 p.m. ET.
English (US)