Erin Jackson, Vanessa James hope to change the look of Olympic skating

When Erin Jackson won 500m speed skating gold last week at the Winter Olympic Games Beijing 2022, she not only ended a nearly three-decades old U.S. gold medal drought in the event, she became the first Black athlete to take gold in the sport.

The 29-year-old hopes her breakthrough can change the look of the sport for good.

"Hopefully it has an effect,” Jackson said, “and we can see more minorities, especially in the USA, getting out and trying some of these winter sports. And I just always hope to be a good example, especially with helping kids see they don’t have to just choose one between schools and sport."

The sport has been part of the Olympic programme since the first Winter Games were held in 1924 in Chamonix, France.

Likewise, figure skating has been part of the Olympic programme so long that it was first contested as part of the summer Games at London 1908 and Antwerp 1920, before its inclusion in those 1924 inaugural Winter Olympics.

Both sports’ early histories were dominated by European and North American medallists.

There was some – but little – diversity in the sports at the Olympic level.

In figure skating, American Debi Thomas, a Black American, took third at Calgary 1988. 

Kristi Yamaguchi became the first Asian American to win the gold medal in the sport in 1992, and Frenchwoman Surya Bonaly was a trailblazing Black skater throughout the 90s. She finished fourth at the 1994 Games in Lillehammer and perhaps best remembered for her daring back flip to one leg in her Nagano 1998 free skate.

Japan’s Shimizu Hiroyasu was speed skating’s first Olympic champion that hailed from outside Europe or the Americas. He won 500m gold at Nagano 1998.

But it took until 2006 and Arakawa Shizuka’s women’s singles win to