Lori “Lolo” Jones is an American hurdler and bobsledder. She specializes in the 60 meter and the 100 meter hurdles. She was born on August 5, 1982, to an African-American father and a white mother in Des Moines, Iowa. Her mother is of French, African-American, Native American, and Norwegian descent.

Lori attended eight schools in eight years. She lived in a Salvation Army church’s basement with her family. She often worked two jobs to help support her family of six be able to grow up and live. Eventually her mother wanted to move again to Forest City, Iowa. Lori believed that there wasn’t a track at the high school in Forest City so she told her mother that she wanted to stay where she was in Des Moines so she could pursue her dreams. She and her family eventually parted and Lori’s coach, Coach Ferguson, helped her find places to stay while she was training at highschool and college. In college Lori kept her grades up and out in the field she broke records. At an Iowa state track meet she set a record of 13.40 seconds in the 100- meter hurdles.

In 2004, Lori tried out for the Olympic track team, sadly she didn’t make the team which caused her to contemplate her future for her track career. She was considering retiring from track but one of her friends said that they’d meet her at practice the next day which helped her to  decide that track was not over for her just yet. Sadly she didn’t make the team. In July of 2006 she had gotten her new personal record for the 100-meter hurdles. 12.56 seconds. In 2007 she won her first national championships at the USA Indoor Championships in the 60-meters hurdles with a time of 7.88 seconds. In 2008, Lori made the Olympic track team. In her final race where medals were distributed, she clipped the ninth hurdle just as she was pulling away from the rest of the pack. She ended up finishing in 7th place and was seen pounding the track as well as crying through the halls mouthing “why, why, why”. She went to the doctor eventually and found out that she had a spinal injury, which caused her to not feel anything in her foot which caused the “clipping”. Eventually she had a procedure and it was successful which helped her compete in more events in seasons to come.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolo_Jones

In 2008, Lori was introduced to bobsledding by Elena Meyers. Eventually she got a spot on the national bobsled team. In 2012 Lori and her teammate Jazmine Fenlator, placed second in Lori’s first career World Cup. On February Lori and her teammate got 11th place, 3.36 seconds behind the gold winning Canadian team.