Erin Jackson: the Sunshine State speed skater taking the winter sports world by storm 

There’s something strange going on in Ocala, Florida.

In a city known as the 'Horse Riding Capital of the World', where the lush green pastures roll into each other to form an equine paradise, a quiet winter sports revolution has been taking place. Away from the Florida Horse Park, the official training centre for the USA equestrian team, Ocala has been breeding a different type of speed machine: Olympic speed skaters.

It’s undoubtedly an oddity that a city located slap bang in the middle of the Sunshine State, and where average winter temperatures are 29 degrees celsius, is developing some of the world’s best talent on the ice. However, at Beijing 2022, the hopes of a nation lie on the shoulders of these athletes as they make an assault on Olympic glory.

One of these Ocala skaters is Erin Jackson, a former inline champion who made the leap to speed skating on ice just months before competing at the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018.

Now, after a meteoric rise in the sport, she is in top form and has the podium in her sights at Beijing 2022.

Olympic serendipity

"I've been skating for as long as I remember," said Jackson in an exclusive interview with Olympics.com in October 2021. However, the 28-year-old Florida native isn't talking about ice skating, her first forays into the sport were on roller skates.

"I started out with those little plastic skates that you attach to your shoes and I grew up what's called a 'rink rat', just like the kids who always go to the rink on the weekends, skating around to music with your friends."

Soon Jackson graduated to artistic skating, a type of sport that has the characteristics of figure skating but on roller skates. But even though she enjoyed herself every time she laced up her skates, in truth, all the young skater really wanted to do was "go fast".

So it was fortuitous when Jackson's mum bumped into the woman who is at the centre of the blooming Ocala skating scene: Renee Hilderbrand.

"My mum was a pharmacy technician and there was a lady who had come into the pharmacy to get her medicines," Jackson explained, looking back on her first contacts with Hilderbrand. "But then she saw the same woman at a diner my mum would go to all the time and it turns out this woman was a world-renowned speed skating coach."

Jackson's mum told Hilderbrand about her daughter who loved nothing more than to skate and Hilderbrand invited her to bring her daughter to the practice rink. Talking from the Salt Lake training centre where the U.S. team prepare for competition, Jackson explained, in hindsight, she couldn't have been in better hands.

"She actually has five of us out here in Salt Lake now," Jackson said from her pre-Olympic base. "Four of us have already gone to the Olympics, two of them are medallists and the fifth, hopefully, she'll make the Olympic team this time around."

An inline skating legend steps onto ice

As an inline skater, Jackson took the sporting world by storm, winning 12 medals at world championship level and 47 national titles. Yet, at that time, she never dreamed about making the switch to the ice.

"It's funny because when they knew about my inline career, people would say 'Oh, we'll see you in the Olympics one day', and I'd be like, 'No, my sport's not in the Olympics and I'll never be an ice skater'. I never really imagined switching over to ice just because I loved inline so much and I hated being cold."

But sure enough, at age 25 and just months away from the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, Jackson decided to take her "not very pretty" first serious steps on the ice.

From shaky beginnings, the champion in Jackson began to rise up and after only four months of training she was readying herself for the Olympic trials, albeit as a clear underdog.

"I started making some bigger jumps with my times leading up to the Olympic trials, but still my thought was 'wow, I wish I had started sooner' because I could have made it if I had started a little sooner.

"I lived and trained in Salt Lake City, which is the fastest ice in the world, so realistically if you're not going to get the time in Salt Lake City, you're not going to get it in Milwaukee, which is where we had the Olympic trials."

But when the trials came around, Jackson confounded all expectations, first hitting the Olympic qualifying time before earning a place on the Olympic team against all odds by winning her final qualifying race. And with it, she won a place in U.S. Olympic history.

Breaking new ground

When Jackson earned her spot on the Olympic team for PyeongChang 2018, she broke new ground as the first woman of colour to compete on the USA's long track speed skating team. It was a proud moment for the Ocala native, even if she wished it hadn't taken so long to come around.

"It wasn't something that came to my mind until I started seeing the headlines and I thought, 'Oh, that's actually pretty cool'. You know, it would be cooler if it wasn't a thing, if there had been many people before me, but here we are."

However, Jackson has warmed to the idea of breaking new ground in her sport and the position of role model that comes with it, saying: "I don't mind being a trailblazer or pioneer or something like that. I'd love to be something like that if it opens the doors for other people to say 'maybe I should give this sport a try' when previously they might look at the sport and see no one who looks like them."

Over recent times, she has also taken steps to increase minority representation in the sport. After working on a scholarship that provided ski and snowboarding training to adult women of colour, Jackson was inspired by the idea.

"I asked her [the woman who created the scholarship], 'Hey, do you think we could do something like this for speed skating?' And we sat down and mapped it out and said, 'yes, this is really possible'. So hopefully when things settle down with the Games, I can kind of work with her a little more closely and get this going."

Rising to the top

Jackson finished 24th in PyeongChang, but that first Olympic experience only marked the beginning of an elite speed skating career.

In the 2021/22 Word Cup season, Jackson's talent really began to shine, as she rose to top of the overall standings with four wins from eight races.

But there was drama to come at the U.S. Olympic trials, which would decide the team for Beijing 2022. After an uncharacteristic fall on the ice, she failed to qualify for the Olympic Winter Games, only to be given a second chance by her friend and fellow Ocala-native Brittany Bowe who offered her own spot in the 500m competition to Jackson.

It was a moment of generosity that made headlines across the world.

“In my heart, there was never a question that I would do whatever it took - if it came down to me - to get Erin to skate at the Olympics," said Bowe, who is preparing to compete in the Olympic 1000m competition, an event in which she holds the world record.

Now Jackson has the chance to fight for gold, having risen to the upper echelons of her sport in dramatic fashion.

Erin Jackson competes in the Beijing 2022 500m competition on Sunday 13 February at 21:56 (CST).