The 2026 Winter Olympics came to an end on Feb. 22, with the United States setting a new national record with 12 gold medals. In addition to displays of national excellence, two former Irish athletes represented Notre Dame in Milan; a bobsledder and a head hockey coach, securing their names on a long list of the University’s athletic legends. Here is how they got there and how they shined.
Jadin O’Brien
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. She earned three NCAA Indoor National Championships in the pentathlon (2023, 2024 and 2025) and was NCAA Outdoor runner-up in the heptathlon in 2024 and 2025. O’Brien was also a ten-time All-American and five-time First-Team All-ACC honoree and earned many other honors, including the 2024 ACC Women’s Indoor Scholar-Athlete of the Year and both the 2025 Indoor and Outdoor Great Lakes Region Field Athlete of the Year awards. In addition to her dominance, she qualified for two Olympic trials in 2021 and 2024.
Shortly after finishing second in the heptathlon with a personal record and best score in program history at the NCAA Outdoor Championships (6,256 points), O’Brien began her training for the Winter Olympics in bobsled. After taking two days off, she spent 10 days pushing herself in training that was completely different from what she had grown up doing in track, before traveling to Lake Placid, N.Y., for rookie camp. O’Brien made the World Cup team and, alongside her driver, Elena Myers Taylor, traveled across Europe competing in only two bobsled races before being selected for the Olympic team.
O’Brien’s Olympic competition began on Friday, Feb. 20 at noon, where she was the pusher for Taylor in Heat One of the two-woman bobsled. Taylor was riding high on winning a gold medal in the Women’s Monobob a few days prior, and fans had high hopes for the two. After three heats to determine standing, heat four is the final race that could determine medal standing. After their heat one race, the pair fell to fifth place, finishing in 57.14 seconds, 0.22 seconds behind the Team USA pair of Kaillie Armbruster Humphries and Jasmine Jones, who took first place in this heat.
After heat two, Taylor and O’Brien finished in 12th place, with a total time of 1 minute 55.13 seconds, and after heat three, Taylor and O’Brien finished in sixth place with a total time of 2 minutes 52.7 seconds. In their final race of the 2026 Olympics, Taylor and O’Brien finished in seventh place with a final race time of 57.79 seconds, making their total time 3 minutes and 50.49 seconds. The German pair Laura Nolte and Deborah Levi took first, another German pair of Lisa Buckwitz and Neele Schuten took second and the Team USA pair Humphries and Jones took third.
Despite O’Brien being in the Olympics for bobsled, her ultimate goal is to get to the Summer Olympics in 2028 for Track and Field, and she will continue to train for the next two years to reach her goal.
John Wroblewski
John Wroblewski was a hockey player for Notre Dame throughout the 1999-2003 seasons and put up big numbers for the Irish. Before playing for Notre Dame in 1997, Wroblewski played for the U.S. National Under-18 Team, where he played in only five games and was goalless, yet learned crucial game development skills that helped him make the USA Hockey National Team Development Program (USNTDP) Under-18 Team the season after, where he played in 42 games and scored nine goals and nine assists. In his final year of developmental play, Wroblewski was back on the U.S. National Under-18 Team, where he played in 56 games, scoring 19 goals. With the Irish, Wroblewski scored only two goals during his first two seasons, despite playing in 66 total games; however, the second half of his time was very successful, with 10 goals in 38 games his junior year and 17 goals in 40 games his senior year. In 2003, Wroblewski was drafted to the Fresno Falcons, where he played in 273 games over four seasons and scored 65 goals.
Wroblewski’s coaching career began in 2009, when he returned to the U.S. National Under-18 Team as an assistant coach, before entering his era of professional East Coast Hockey League (ECHL) coaching. In 2010-2011, Wroblewski was the assistant coach for the Wheeling Nailers before becoming the head coach of the Gwinnett Gladiators for two seasons, during which they won 84 of their 130 games and made in to the playoffs each season. From 2013-2015, Wroblewski was the assistant coach for the Rochester Americans. He then became the head coach of the Youngstown Phantoms in 2015 before returning to the United States Hockey League (USHL) development programs. Wroblewski alternated between the U.S. National Under-18 Team and Under-17 team until 2020, when he became the head coach of the Ontario Reign until 2022.
At the end of the 2022 season, Wroblewski was named the head coach of the United States women’s national ice hockey team for the 2022 IIHF Women’s World Championship, where Canada defeated the United States in the finals 2-1 to win their 12th title. Wroblewski continued to work with the Women’s Ice Hockey team and found himself traveling to the 2026 Winter Olympics as the head coach.
The team started playing on Feb. 5, when they defeated Czechia 5-1, giving them confidence heading into their weekend match against Finland on Feb. 7, which the U.S. won 5-0. The U.S. continued its preliminary-round play the following week, on Monday and Tuesday, defeating Switzerland 5-0 and Canada 5-0, respectively. The quarterfinal game was on Feb. 13 against Italy, where the U.S. once again won 6-0, followed by the semifinal game on Feb. 16 against Sweden, which the U.S. won 5-0. The U.S. found itself in the same situation as it did in 2022, heading into the final round against Canada. With the game going into overtime due to a 1-1 tie, Megan Keller took a pass from Taylor Heise, moved past a defender, and scored on a backhand shot, securing the Olympic gold medal for Team USA.
Wroblewski was deeply emotional following the win and praised the players for their resilience in only allowing two goals scored their entire Olympic run, but made sure to emphasize that he wanted to make these women’s dreams come true, not win himself a medal.
