Of the 2,952 athletes competing at this year’s Winter Olympics, only 43 (1.45-percent) of those athletes are black. Some have already made history, while all are challenging perceptions of what a winter athlete looks like. Here are the remarkable individuals:
1.Eighteen-year-old Maame Afua Biney is the first African-American woman to qualify for a US Olympic speed skating team.
3.European Bronze Medalist Vanessa James and her partner Morgan Cipres will be figure skating for France. James made history back in 2010 when she and Yannick Bonheur became the first black pair to ever compete at the Olympics.
4.Ngozi Onwumere and her teammates Akuoma and Seun are the first ever athletes to represent Nigeria at the Winter Olympics. They’re also the first African representatives to qualify for and compete in the bobsled competition.
5.Three-time national track and field champion Akuoma Omeoga will be bobsledding for Nigeria after having represented the West African country in the 2012 Summer Olympics.
7.Four-time medalist Shani Davis will be speedskating for Team USA. In 2006, he became the first black athlete to win a gold medal in an individual sport — the 1000 meter event — at the Winter Games and, in 2010, the first man to successfully defend the 1000 meter gold medal.
9.Mica Moore will be bobsledding for Great Britain, thanks to their GoFundMe supporters. She and her teammate crowdfunded more than £40,000 to cover their expenses after the country’s Bobsleigh and Skeleton Association stopped funding the women’s bobsled team — but not the men’s — last fall.
10.Team USA athlete Erin Jackson will be the first African-American woman to compete in Olympic long-track skating. She qualified for this year’s Winter Games with only four months of experience speedskating on ice.
14.Rounding out Team Jamaica is Carrie Russell, who previously won a gold medal in the 4×100 meters relay event at the 2013 World Championships in Athletics.
17.Team USA bobsledder Hakeem Abdul-Saboor was personally recruited after an Olympic stretch coach saw a video of Hakeem jumping and touching his head to a 10-foot ceiling.
Fun Fact: Elana is a two-time Olympic Medalist, having won the silver medal in 2014 and a bronze medal in 2010, both for Team USA.
21.Also competing for Team USA is Lauren Gibbs who left her corporate job in 2013 to successfully try out for the U.S. bobsled team. She later won a bronze medal at the 2016 bobsled world championship.
24.Four-time NCAA All American athlete Simidele Adeagbo retired from track and field in 2008. But in 2017, she successfully tried out for the Nigerian Skeleton Federation after hearing about the country’s history-making bobsledders. She’ll be the first black woman and African-representative to compete in the event.
29.Six years after competing with the Canadian relay team at the summer Olympics, Oluseyi Smith will represent his home country once again in the bobsled event.
32.Joshua Bluhm will be representing Germany in the bobsledding event at this year’s games. A former bobsledder encouraged him to take up the sport in 2012, claiming he had the perfect build for it.
33.Sarah Nurse will be competing in hockey for Team Canada. She comes from a family of accomplished athletes, including her uncle former NFL quarterback Donovan McNabb and University of Connecticut basketball point guard Kia Nurse.
34.Team Great Britain bobsledder Toby Olubi left his teaching job to focus on making the 2018 Winter Games. To help fund his journey to Pyeongchang, Toby competed in game shows like Deal or No Deal and was even shot out of a cannon.
35.Before Lamin Deen took up bobsledding, the Grenadier Guardsman represented the British Army in athletics, boxing, and basketball. He’ll be bobsledding for Team Great Britain this year at his second Winter Olympics.
37.Joel Fearon has already made history as Britain’s third fastest sprinter of all time. He hopes to make the same impact bobsledding for his country in Pyeongchang.
A previous version of this story did not include athletes Anthony Watson of Team USA or Christopher Kinney of Team Jamaica. As a Jamaican-American, I’m so ashamed y’all! Also, Sabrina Wanjiku Simader will be the second (not the first) athlete to represent Kenya at the Winter Olympics, but she will be the first woman.
