It's easy to see why Lolo Jones used the word "redemption" in talking about her inclusion in the U.S. Olympic Bobsled Team at next month's Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
Jones, the two-time heartbreak Olympic hurdler who has yet to earn a medal, appeared on the "TODAY" show Tuesday and talked about what it meant to qualify for the Games in a new sport.
"I think it's even more about redemption,'' Jones told Savannah Guthrie on TODAY Tuesday. "I learned so much from the moment I walked into that Olympic training center in Lake Placid and met the bobsledders. They embraced me at one of the lowest points of my life. I was just coming off the Summer Games, and I was pretty depressed, and they lifted me up and day by day they encouraged me to never give up on this Olympic dream."
Jones will be one of three push athletes, along with Lauryn Williams and Aja Evans, who will be paired with three drivers - Elana Meyers, Jamie Greubel and Jazmine Fenlator - to make up the three U.S. teams. Jones and Williams, a track and field gold medalist in the 4x100-meter relays in the 2012 London Olympics, are the ninth and 10th female athletes to compete in both the summer and winter Olympics.
Jones is known for having her gold medal dreams shattered in 2008 in Beijing when she was about to win the 100-meter hurdles before clipping the ninth of 10 hurdles and stumbling to a seventh-place finish.
"They really did give me a fresh start,'' she said about the USA Bobsled and Skeleton Federation. "I know you can't change the past, but knowing I hit a hurdle, got fourth place, I wouldn't change it for the fact that I know that it led me here. It led me to meet a great group of female athletes, and we are truly united and bonded and ready to go to Sochi and dominate."
But part of her joy could be in the fact that some of Jones' Olympic track and field teammates felt some jealousy toward her fame. USA TODAY's For the Win reposted a story from businessinsider.com that showed a video of Olympic 100-meter hurdle silver and bronze medalists Dawn Harper and Kellie Wells lashing out at Jones, who missed out on a medal by one-tenth of a second.
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