AS ERIN JACKSON stormed her way to the finish line in the 1000-meter race at the Olympic trials in January, Brittany Bowe was rink side.
Bowe was watching her lead in the event — and possibly her Olympic berth — slip away. But if she was disappointed or nervous, she didn’t show it.
Instead, the 37-year-old did what she has become known for doing: She remained the ever-supportive teammate and friend, yelling words of encouragement as Jackson got closer and closer.
Jackson won the race by 0.39 seconds, with Bowe’s time good enough for second — but not an automatic spot on the team. It didn’t take long for U.S. Speedskating to announce Bowe would in fact get the spot, though. And by the end of trials, both had secured their berths to Milan in multiple races, with Jackson in the 500m and 1000m, and Bowe in the 1000m, 1500m and in the team pursuit. It will be Jackson’s third Olympic appearance, and Bowe’s fourth — and final.
Competing at the Games together again marks the latest chapter of the two longtime friends who thrilled the world with a heartwarming act of sportsmanship in 2022 — and continue to be one another’s biggest supporters in a largely individual sport.
“I’ve known Brittany for over 20 years. I grew up in the same hometown in Florida with her, and I started inline speedskating looking up to her,” Jackson, 33, told ESPN in the fall. “I was following in her footsteps, and she’s just been an incredible mentor for me through the years. [In 2022] I felt like if Brittany believed in me enough to give up her spot for me, then it made me believe in myself even more. So, it was kind of a fairy-tale ending for both of us.”
FOUR YEARS AGO, Jackson was the top-ranked speedskater in the world in the 500 meters and a favorite to take home Olympic gold. But at trials, disaster struck. She stumbled during the race and finished in third place. Bowe won.
With the top two skaters earning Olympic berths in those trials, it looked as if Jackson’s dreams for Beijing had been dashed. But that simply didn’t sit right for Bowe. As soon as the race was over, she relinquished her spot on the team in the race — she had already qualified for the 1000m and the 1500m — in order for Jackson to have the opportunity. It was, in Bowe’s words at the time, “the spirit of the Olympics” and something Jackson rightfully deserved.
“I’m incredibly grateful and humbled by the kindness of Brittany Bowe in helping me to secure a chance at reaching my goals,” Jackson wrote on Instagram soon after. “She’s an amazing friend, teammate, and mentor and this is an act I’ll never forget.”
Bowe’s decision went viral, and she was even named the flag-bearer for Team USA during the opening ceremony, as voted on by her teammates, in recognition of what she had done.
And Jackson made sure Bowe’s selflessness was not in vain. She won the race, becoming the first Black woman to win an individual Olympic gold medal at the Winter Games and the first American woman to be victorious in the event since Bonnie Blair in 1994.
HISTORIC GOLD‼️ 🥇
Erin Jackson wins gold in the long track women’s 500m to become the first Black woman to win a speed skating medal. #WinterOlympics pic.twitter.com/SJit8Hz0Sp
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) February 14, 2022
Bowe, who earned the bronze medal in the 1000m just days later, ranked Jackson’s achievement as “probably at the top” in terms of moments in her own career.
“To be a part of that, and giving a Black woman an opportunity to do something that’s never been done before and just being a small piece of her puzzle, just is another realization that life is just so much bigger than yourself,” Bowe said in October. “And what really matters is the impact you have on everyone around you. Because at the end of the day, no one’s going to remember your results, but everyone’s going to remember how you treated them and how you made them feel.”
Immediately after becoming an Olympic champion, though, Jackson admitted she struggled emotionally. She was crippled by self-doubt and wondered if she had truly earned the gold medal. Bowe was quick to convince her otherwise.
“I actually dealt with a little bit of impostor syndrome with it for a bit,” Jackson said. “Just because I felt like, ‘Did I deserve this?’ I was just thinking about the years and the dedication that everyone’s put into it, and I felt like maybe I hadn’t been in it long enough to have achieved this thing. But it was Brittany again who helped me realize yes, I did deserve this. [She said] ‘You did put in the work just as much as everyone else.'”
For Jackson, Bowe has always been an indelible part of her story in the sport. Both hail from Ocala, Florida, a town of about 70,000 in the central part of the state. With four years separating them in age, Jackson watched in awe as Bowe made a name for herself as a teenager in inline speedskating, winning several world championships. When Jackson started in the sport, Bowe was already a local legend.
“She was this amazing world champion inline skater. She would go around the world racing and winning, and then she would come home and skate on my team,” Jackson said. “That was just the coolest thing to me.”
It wasn’t long before Jackson was also winning on the global stage. She won the world junior title in the 500m during the 2008-09 season.
Although she kept inline skating, Bowe redirected her talents after the 2008 world championships to focus on basketball, her other love. She played point guard at Division I Florida Atlantic University, starting every game her final three seasons and averaging more than 33 minutes a game during her senior year. But she kept racing, too.
Inspired by watching several of her former inline peers turn to speedskating during the 2010 Olympics, Bowe thought she would give it a try. Before the next Games got underway, she had already set a world record in the 1000 meters. She made the 2014 team and has been a mainstay ever since.
Jackson, once again, watched in awe. She too decided to make the transition to speedskating after a highly decorated inline career, taking to the ice for the first time in February 2017. By September of that year, she committed to full-time training. She stunned the speedskating world by qualifying for the Olympics just four months later in the 500m.
For the first time in her career, Brittany Bowe wins an individual Olympic medal! 🥉
The 33-year-old takes BRONZE in the women’s 1000m! #WinterOlympics | #WatchWithUS pic.twitter.com/bjWF8ykRH7
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) February 17, 2022
Since then, Bowe and Jackson have become arguably the most recognizable faces on the U.S. speedskating team and have continued to collect hardware and records along the way. And their friendship has remained central to their story. In the fall, the duo teamed up for a social media video series called “Cold Laps, Hot Takes” to answer fan questions about topics like handling prerace nerves and the difficulty of having to use the bathroom while already wearing a skin suit. Jackson credits Bowe for the idea and said the fan support has been “really nice.”
“Whenever we see a new person, they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, we really love that series you guys are doing,'” Jackson said. “It’s been super fun so far.”
Bowe has decided Milan will be her final Olympics. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t going for a gold medal,” she told reporters at the Team USA Media Summit. But she also said she’ll be fine with any result as long as she skates her best.
Bowe doesn’t know what the future holds — and she remains undecided about competing at the world championships in March — but she’s excited to figure it out. Her partner, Hilary Knight, the captain of the U.S. women’s hockey team, has also decided this will be her final Games, although she will continue playing in the Professional Women’s Hockey League. The pair met in Beijing during the Olympics in 2022, and they’ve been together ever since.
Jackson has given no indication that this will be her final Olympic appearance, but she, too, is hopeful to stand on top of the podium yet again.
But Bowe and Jackson both know, no matter what happens this week in Milan, they will be forever linked in the minds of sports fans and perhaps best remembered for their shared act in 2022. And for the pair, who started on the same team in a different sport, that is more than enough.
“Brittany said it best. She said it was bigger than us,” Jackson said. “As Olympians, people focus on the sports side of everything, but this showed the human side. It showed the sportsmanship, and the gratitude, the humility, the relationships between athletes. It made so many people happy. It just remains a really special thing to be a part of.”
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