BEIJING (SNN-TV) – Erin Jackson, a native of Ocala, Fla., made history Sunday when she won the 500-meter speedskating gold in Beijing.
Jackson won the race with a time of 37.04 seconds, edging out Japan’s Miho Takagi and Angelina Golikova of the Russian Olympic Committee — who won the silver and bronze respectively — by mere hundredths of a second.
With her win, Jackson became the first American to win a speedskating medal during the Beijing Olympics and the first individual medal since 2010.
More notably, though, Jackson’s gold-medal run also made her the first Black woman in history to win an Olympic speedskating medal.
“Hopefully its just a stepping stone, you know. I’d love to see more people come after me. It would be awesome if I wasn’t the first, but I’ll do my best to be a good example.”
Jackson’s spot on Team USA came when teammate Brittany Bowe, another Ocala skater who finished first at the trials, gave up her spot in the 500-meter race to ensure Jackson would get to compete in Beijing.