Olympic hurdler Lolo Jones wins bobsleigh world championship in Germany

Olympic hurdler Lolo Jones of the U.S. made headlines on Saturday after winning the fourth world title of her athletic career. Jones’s performance didn’t come on the track, however, and instead of running, she raced to world championship gold in a bobsleigh. The 38-year-old dual-sport athlete has competed for the U.S. national bobsleigh team since 2012, and she paired up with Canadian-born Kaillie Humphries in the two-woman event to take the win at the world championships in Altenberg, Germany. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CK9vYGPBXon/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Jones won her first world crown in 2008 when she ran to gold in the 60m hurdles at the indoor world championships in Valencia, Spain. She successfully defended that title in 2010 in Doha, Qatar. After finding her way to the bobsleigh track following the Beijing Olympics in 2008, Jones made her debut on the U.S. national team in 2012. In 2013, she was part of the American team that won the mixed-gender world title in St. Moritz, Switzerland. 

RELATED: The Weight of Gold: a look at mental health and elite sport

Jones was named to the U.S. Olympic squad in 2014, and she placed 11th in the two-woman event in Sochi, Russia. She wasn’t selected for the 2018 Olympic team, but she and Humphries now look to be the favourites heading toward next year’s Beijing Winter Games. 

IT'S OFFICIAL: Kaillie Humphries and Lolo Jones are world champions! ?@BobsledKaillie is the first four-time world champion in two-woman bobsled and @lolojones wins her first world bobsled title. pic.twitter.com/2eTdV1r8wk

— NBC Olympics (@NBCOlympics) February 6, 2021

While Jones is one of the most successful athletes to transition from the track to the bobsleigh, she is far from the first to do so. In fact, Jones isn’t even the first track athlete to race with Humphries. At the 2010 and 2014 Winter Games, Humphries (then competing for Canada) won gold in the two-woman bobsleigh event with former University of Waterloo sprinter Heather Moyse. 

At the 2018 Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea, Humphries won bronze in the two-woman bobsleigh with Canadian Olympic hurdler Phylicia George. Humphries has since joined the U.S. team after filing complaints of harassment against high-ranking Bobsleigh Canada officials.  

RELATED: Former track sprinter medals for Canada in Sochi

Also in 2018, Canadians Justin Kripps and Alexander Kopacz won gold in the two-man bobsleigh event in PyeongChang, South Korea, and both men started out as track and field athletes. Kripps competed as a sprinter at Simon Fraser University in B.C. before getting into a bobsleigh for the first time, and Kopacz was a shot putter at the University of Western Ontario ahead of his transition to the winter sport.