She spent her high school and collegiate careers chasing her Olympic dreams on the track. Twelve days after her 2025 season ended, she was chasing that dream on ice.
Jadin O’Brien, one of the most decorated athletes in the history of the Notre Dame track and field program, built her resume as a pentathlon and heptathlon specialist, earning multiple NCAA titles, 10 All-American Honors, five First-Team All-ACC honors and two Olympic Trials Qualifiers in 2021 and 2024.
O’Brien’s story in college is defined and driven by her performance despite the odds stacked against her, and it began when she was only five years old. O’Brien was diagnosed with pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders associated with streptococcal infections, and she experienced a severe-onset case of OCD and had noticeable changes in mood, behavior and motor function. O’Brien said this made her “extremely competitive” and that she is “extremely proud” of her younger self, especially because she is “able to accomplish [her] lifelong dream.” Performing despite these odds, while simultaneously growing up in a household where her father played professional football, “inspired her Olympic dreams.” Hearing his stories drove O’Brien to achieve the highest level of athletics she could, but in her own way. Although she is competing at the Winter Olympics now, reaching the summer games in track and field remains the ultimate goal for O'Brien.
Although many outsiders may see the shift to bobsledding as abrupt and random, it has been in the back of O’Brien’s mind for a while. After a video on O’Brien’s Instagram page was posted of her deadlifting 335 pounds, power cleaning 201 and bench pressing 270, Elana Meyers Taylor reached out and asked if O’Brien would be interested in trying out for bobsled. Taylor, who was a softball player at George Washington University, accidentally found her way into bobsledding, which allowed her to be a top talent recruiter for the United States team as she knew what abilities to look for in athletes that would have the potential to transfer to the sport.
At first, O’Brien admits she didn’t think too much of it, until this past indoor season when the call came again, and it was finally a route O’Brien was ready to travel. Burnt out from the physical and mental grind of collegiate track, O’Brien knew she couldn’t miss her first chance at the Olympics. After just two days off, O’Brien trained for 10 days straight before traveling to Lake Placid, N.Y., for rookie camp, then tried out and made the World Cup team, on which she represented the U.S. on the European circuit.
O’Brien’s seven events, which were a test of endurance, were quickly transformed into one explosive push. “Everything you don’t do in track, you do in bobsled.” O’Brien called them “polar opposites,” specifically comparing her long, indoor track workouts to her short, explosive work on cement and ice. However, the track-to-bobsled pipeline is strong, especially with sprinters and jumpers, since an athlete needs to be fast and powerful, plus be able to handle the physical aspects of the bobsled. As O’Brien said, it’s “not a smooth ride, and you can get beat up.”
O’Brien experienced this first hand one day in January 2025 during a practice run. Taylor hadn’t adjusted the sled for the tough curve ahead, which caused the sled to lose balance and slam into the walls of the track twice, even taking out chunks of ice on the way. O’Brien was ejected from the sled and flipped in the air, causing her to land on her back and slide down the ice. After a few minutes of not being able to feel anything, O’Brien’s movement came back, and an X-ray found she had no broken bones. O’Brien knew this would be her last chance to prove herself for Olympic selection, so she battled alongside Taylor during the race despite being in excruciating pain.
Behind O’Brien’s Olympic aspirations is a community that indirectly gave her the confidence to step onto the ice. At Notre Dame, O’Brien had more than medals and record-breaking performances, she had a family that truly believed in her. “My coaches, teammates, professors and even the athletic facility as a whole created a magical experience,” she said. O’Brien also credits the Irish athletic department with showing her “what she’s capable of and how strong she is mentally and physically.”
O’Brien is set to make her Olympic debut today at 11 a.m. in the two-woman bobsled, pushing for Taylor, with the rest of the runs slated to begin tomorrow at noon.
