This is the first in a two-part feature on the career and life of Jamaican bobsleigher Jazmine Fenlator-Victorian. Read Part Two in next Sunday’s Jamaica Observer.

Many athletes would have been discouraged or would have lost all motivation by the many heartbreaking failures, personal tragedies and adversities they face throughout their careers. But not Jazmine Fenlator-Victorian.

Long before fate led her to bobsleigh, Fenlator-Victorian — much like the ice that lines the track for the Winter Olympics sport — developed a cold attitude that not only saw her smile in the face of adversities, but also exploit each challenge and circumstance as the recipe for her success.

For the vivacious Fenlator-Victorian, 36, fear of obstacles is just an illusion, as every blunder, missed opportunity and heart-jerking news often push her to try harder on the next occasion — the main objective being to make what initially seemed impossible, possible.

It is this sheer willpower and stubborn determination, exemplified by her mother Susan, who has battled and overcome health and other challenges, that fuelled Fenlator-Victorian’s passion and drove her to pilot her name in the annals of Jamaica’s sporting history.

She joined former sprinter Carrie Russell in becoming the country’s first-ever women’s bobsled team to appear at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, in 2018, exactly 30 years after the men’s team historically graced the ice. She repeated the feat earlier this year in Beijing, China.

“If I were to describe my life, or maybe even the root of who I am, I would say it’s almost like defying gravity. You know when things want to pull you down and just bring you all the way six feet under, you just keep climbing up,” Fenlator-Victorian told the Jamaica Observer during a sit down at the Beaches Resort in St Mary.

“I think I praise myself for my ability to adapt to adversity. I’m not perfect, nobody’s perfect, but I do think it’s a strength of mine to accept challenges, meet myself where I’m at, and do the best I can with what I’ve got to get somewhere or achieve something I set out to,” she added.

The American-born Fenlator-Victorian, whose father Cosman hails from Cave in Westmoreland, shared that her mother of Eastern European background was diagnosed with lupus, a chronic autoimmune disease at age 22 and was told she wouldn’t live past age 50. She is now 64 years of age.

“So you see that it is something I really think has been instilled in me from my parents. They always told me you’re everything that you are, there’s no choice and that has led me in many ways in terms of my confidence in who I am and what I represent. It also comes from my Jamaican culture and from the sport itself,” she reasoned.

“I’ve taken a lot of lessons from the many tragedies within my sporting career, encompassing my life, my business, my mentorship and my public speaking because those are lessons that are priceless, and without sport, and that grit, I might have ended up doing something different that might have not really been that great,” Fenlator-Victorian noted.

Dancing, not sport, was the initial love

Interestingly, growing up in Wayne, New Jersey, bobsleigh, or any sport for that matter, was the farthest thing from Fenlator-Victorian’s mind. Instead, her first love was dancing where she competed nationally, appeared in commercials and even tried out for Broadway.

“I didn’t get into sports until I was like 14, that is when I started gymnastics and track and field. And I really excelled at track and field quickly and realised there was an opportunity to get a scholarship and get an education that way,” Fenlator-Victorian said.

Her vision did in fact come to fruition, as she later transitioned from Wayne Valley High to Rider University where she enjoyed a four-year career as a member of the track and field team and was named Rider Women’s Athlete of the Year twice. She was later elected to the Rider Athletics Hall of Fame in 2015 in her first year of eligibility.

Fenlator-Victorian graduated from Rider with a bachelor’s degree in multimedia communication and advertising before completing her first master’s degree in exercise science from California University of Pennsylvania. She also completed a Master of Business Administration (MBA), with a concentration in marketing from Devry University.

Though she had a soft spot for the 1993 Disney film Cool Runnings, based on the 1988 Jamaican men’s bobsled team, the thought of being a bobsledder still didn’t cross Fenlator-Victorian’s mind, even as her college career near its ending.

Her focus at that point was on qualifying for the NCAAs and eventually pursuing a spot on the United States track and field team for the 2012 London Olympics. However, her then coach at Rider, Robert Pasquariello, had other ideas.

After suggesting that she try her hand at bobsleigh, which she shrugged off, Pasqauriello, without Fenlator-Victorian’s knowledge, submitted her athletic resume to the United States Olympic Committee.

“They e-mailed me and asked me to come try out but at the time I already got a job with Johnson & Johnson before I graduated, so I’m trying to make money to pay bills because at that time it was 2007 and the economy in the US was not good. So to graduate college and have an opportunity to have a job was a huge thing.

“But I didn’t want it to be a case of should have, could have, would have, and that again often comes from my mom. So even though the trial was right before my first day of corporate work, I went up to Lake Placid, New York, to give it a go.

“It was all physical testing similar to NFL Combine or even European football where you know you do a physical test, and some skills work before you actually play with the team. So we had sprinting, lifting, jumping, pushing a sled on wheels, and then they assessed us against their already top team to see if we have potential,” she told the Observer, shortly after her visit to Iona High School.

From there, it was a match made in heaven.

“They called me back and said, ‘pack as if you’re not going home from October to March, we’re going to get on ice and have a season’. I have never left this sport since. I fell in love with the adrenaline, the hard work, the grit, the resilience, and I think I also fell in love with the idea that people felt like it was impossible. So I shouldn’t say I was proving them wrong, but more like proving myself right,” Fenlator-Victorian declared.

Fenlator-Victorian made her first appearance in the US team in 2007 as a brake woman and attempted to qualify for the 2010 Vancouver Games, but missed out on making both the World Cup and Olympic team.

“So I hopped in the driver’s seat and dabbled in a driving school and I said, after the 2010 Olympics, I’m going to try driving. And I told myself when I didn’t make that team that I would be at the next Olympics. I didn’t say I will try, I said I will be at the next Olympics as a pilot,” she said.

First appearance on global stage

That affirmation proved most prophetic, as the now three-time Olympian made her first appearance on the global multi-sport winter games for the United States in Sochi, Russia, 2014, placing 11th in the two-man bobsled with former sprint hurdler Lolo Jones as her brakewoman.

Her persistence in pursuit of Olympic glory was well worth it in the end, but the build up to that historical appearance was no smooth sailing.

While enduring years of laborious training on track, as well as balancing numerous hustles, from walking people’s dogs, to waxing floors to pay for her equipment and insurance, among other things, Fenlator-Victorian also had to keep an eye on home, as along with the health issue, her mother had other obstacles to endure.

Fenlator-Victorian’s mother lost her home to Hurricane Irene in 2011, leaving her homeless for just over two months.

“I came home as soon as I could to help prepare things and be there for her. Even when she was ill, I drove home to be by her side during surgery and when she got out of surgery, she told me, ‘You better get your butt back up there because you have a race’,” she revealed.

“There are a lot of things that definitely take a toll, but what helps an individual really get through is having a great support system,” Fenlator-Victorian added.

Following her Sochi run, Fenlator-Victorian continued to produce credible performances, but hinted at racial abuse, coupled with the need for more oomph, as part of her reasons for switching allegiance to Jamaica.

“So after those Olympics, you are kind of at the height of your career, whether you medal or you don’t have a great performance, or you have an awesome performance, it doesn’t matter. There’s a comedown from that. It’s kind of a now what feeling and the struggle I went through to even qualify for those games wore me out,” Fenlator-Victorian stated.

She continued “So I wanted to do a season to get back the joy of the sport of the team and so I competed one more year, the 2014-15 season, on Team USA, and I really wanted to showcase my abilities to myself, not anyone else. I finished third in the world that season, but there was still emptiness and I didn’t feel like there was enough of an impact in my presence.

“That as well as the fact that I had to fight so hard, constantly against discrimination and judgement that was uncalled for, and I wouldn’t call it abuse, but in layman’s terms it’s abuse against your athletes, and I was so tired it was making me bitter. And that’s the worst thing as an athlete, to be killing yourself and prioritising a sport that you love so much, that you’re willing to do anything for, and you become bitter towards it.

Her husband of today, Aaron “Surf”, who also represented the US between 2013 and 2015 and later competed for Canada in skeleton in 2018, after questioning her need to continue in the sport, suggested the move from the stars and stripes to the black, green and gold.

“I asked him what other people who look like me in my scenario have been through what I have done. I want to inspire the next generation that they can, despite the barriers and the box people want to put them in. He then asked aren’t you a dual-citizen? Why don’t you go to Team Jamaica.

“It never dawned on me that it was possible. Because at that time, not a lot of people crossed over different nations unless they were being paid or things like that and it was very few. So I reached out to the (Bobsled and Skeleton) Federation and asked them if I went through the appropriate channels would they be open arms? And, of course, they said yes.

“So I transitioned to Jamaica for myself, as well as for the next generation of Jamaican women, black women, so they know that they’re unstoppable,” Fenlator-Victorian said with the fierceness evident in her eyes, as she leaned forward in her chair to voice her concerns about race and gender inequality on the day which was celebrated as International Women’s day.

“You know what, when I sit and think about it, sometimes it’s just so sad. We’re in 2022 still talking about racial discrimination and gender inequality. You know, our sport is predominantly in snowy areas where you’re exposed to, mainly Europe is where a bunch of sports started, skiing, snowboarding, bobsled, even. And so to be a black woman, one, the women have always been undervalued, as well as underestimated in our sport and then when you put that you’re diverse and black on top of that, you keep jumping to the lower point of the totem pole.

“And it’s been difficult. We’ve had people who they’re sled makers that say they won’t sell equipment to black athletes that are pilots, they don’t belong in the front; they should just be the engine pushing a sled. I’m so proud of the women I’ve competed against that are all black, especially these last Olympics, that have raised their voices talking about and exposing these things and saying no, I’m here to stay. And I’m proud to know that going into the future,” Fenlator-Victorian noted.