Two Weeks, Two Races, Two-Woman Bobsled, One Olympic Dream for Jadin O'Brien

Jadin O'Brien had two weeks to learn bobsled before she made the World Cup team. Two weeks to go from heptathlete to brakeman. 

And then, almost immediately, she found herself racing alongside the woman who'd initially recruited her into the sport.

"E and I developed a really strong relationship throughout the season," O'Brien says, referring to Elana Meyers Taylor — Olympic champion, bobsled legend, and the woman whose Instagram DM O'Brien almost left on read.

"She was actually the only pilot I raced with throughout the season. My first race in Latvia was with her. My second race in Switzerland was also with her. And I ended up being on her sled for the Olympics."

That continuity wasn't by O'Brien's design as the coaching staff ultimately determines the lineup, but it became one of the defining forces of her rookie season. 

Learning the Sport in Real Time

The rookie experience in bobsled is, by O'Brien's own admission, a lot. "Everything was new," she says. "Every country we went to was new, every track was new, everything was always changing." 

She'd gone from a controlled track environment to a sport where cold is just the baseline condition. The physical demands of bobsled arrive in ways a heptathlete's training simply doesn't prepare you for.

"Bobsled was a different type of hard that I wasn't used to," she says. "It's very manual." And she was absorbing all of it mid-season, mid-competition, with roster spots on the line and veterans around her who had years of muscle memory she was still building.

What steadied her, repeatedly, was the woman at the front of the sled.

Inside the Partnership 

Meyers Taylor is roughly 20 years O'Brien's senior. It’s a gap that, in interviews, tends to invite the mother-daughter comparison. O'Brien acknowledges the dynamic fondly. "She is 20 years older than me, about, so it is a little — there's a little bit of that," she says. But she's quick to push past that label.

"She absolutely took me under her wing. And we went through quite a lot together during the season. She was always a huge supporter and motivator. She's become an incredible friend."

O'Brien's boyfriend Kevin became an unofficial babysitter for Meyers Taylor's kids during training blocks in Europe, stepping in while the two athletes handled what O'Brien laughingly calls "the dirty work." There was a comfort that transcended a pilot-brakeman dynamic and became a genuine partnership.

The relationship was tested on January 6th.

The Crash

During a January training run in St. Moritz, Switzerland, ahead of a World Cup race, their sled lost control, slammed into the wall multiple times, and flipped. Meyers Taylor called it one of the most violent, horrific crashes she'd ever experienced. They were, she wrote, inches away from a different outcome.

"She and I went through a really tough crash together. Both of us were very beat up. I still have symptoms from the crash that I'm actively working to get through right now."

And the crash was only part of it.

"The next few weeks after that…there was just a lot of added chaos," she says. "The Olympic team was named, I was recovering, we were trying to figure out how to switch sleds. It was hard to get in a groove because of how severe it all was."

What she came back to, again and again, was the partnership. "We really just relied on each other," says O’Brien.

"As soon as the Olympic team was named and we were partners, we made sure we were working out together, spending time together, actively trying to make sure both of our bodies were ready to go for the Games."

Under the Olympic Spotlight 

When the Games arrived in Cortina, O'Brien had raced exactly twice in her career.

She and Meyers Taylor finished fifth in the first heat. Then a skid at the top of the track in heat two dropped them to 12th. They climbed back over the final two runs to finish tied for seventh. 

"Something happened, right?" O'Brien laughs. "Like, we did something, right?"

Beneath the training blocks, the sled changes, and her post-crash recovery, O’Brien returned to her faith to find grounding amidst all the change. 

“Relying on my faith, just trusting the Lord. God, you put me here, you want me here for something…I trust you. That helped me a lot."

She'd dreamed of the Olympics since she was five years old. She just never imagined her path would would look like this.

"Boom, bobsled. And that's how my Olympic dream became a reality."

ABOUT THIS SERIES

I'm Amy Wotovich and I am on a mission to interview 100% of Team USA's 2026 Olympic and Paralympic athletes to create the most comprehensive mindset record of a single Games cycle. What do elite competitors actually believe about pressure, identity, failure, and joy? Jadin O’Brien is one of hundreds of athletes sharing their unfiltered answers. Follow the journey!