No medals were awarded, but speed skater Erin Jackson claimed one of the most prestigious titles of the 2026 Winter Olympic Games: She’s Team USA’s flag-bearer, a position she shared with bobsledder Frank del Duca. During every Opening Ceremony, the Parade of Nations featured athletes from every competing country, and it’s considered a huge honor to carry one’s national flag.
For the United States, the flag-bearers, typically a male and female athlete, are chosen through a vote of Team USA. Jackson has been a skater since childhood…but for much of that time, she was on wheels, not blades. Born in Florida, Jackson took up inline skating and roller derby, and became a world champion star in the sport. In 2017, she began training on the ice, and qualified for the 2018 Winter Games in PyeongChang just months later.
“I just had always enjoyed going fast on skates. And now I found a sport where that’s the objective,” Jackson said of the transition.
The speed skater returned four years later and won the 500-meter race in Beijing in 2022, becoming the first Black woman from any country to win a gold medal in any individual event at the Winter Olympics.
The feat is all the more impressive when you learn that she nearly missed the 2022 Games but made it thanks to the good sportsmanship of a teammate. In 2022, Jackson was the #1-ranked speed skater in the world, but after slipping at the end of her qualifying run, came in third and missed out on a slot on Team USA.