Photo by Daniel Boczarski/Getty Images for Churchill Downs
By: Tabnie Dozier
Hurdles. Bobsled. Red carpets. Advocacy. Lolo Jones is one of a few athletes to compete in both the Summer and Winter Olympic Games. She’s a World Champion a few times over and now…she’s entering the realm of disruption; championing equal rights for athletes, and shedding stigmas surrounding women and how they live their lives.
“I’m busy working on athletes’ rights helping them make sure that they can have health insurance, medical you know, even behind the scenes paying for athletes’ court cases, lawyers, because I saw a lot of athletes suffering injustice this year with USA bobsled. So that was really near and dear to my heart,” Ms. Jones explains.
We caught up with the successful beauty at the 37th annual Barnstable-Brown Derby Eve Gala in the Highlands. It’s a party with a purpose that benefits the Barnstable Brown Diabetes Center at the University of Kentucky. Jones stunned media members and fans with her incredible dress and diamond face accessory upon entry. “I said…make it church, but make it Vogue. I was like, something you’ll never wear in regular life,” she exclaims.
While her first Kentucky Derby was full of mint juleps, selfies, outfit changes, and the essence of our marvelous home, Jones is carrying quite a heavy load. “We’ve seen such a transition for college athletes and NIL (name, image and likeness), and they’re getting more rights and the ability to make more money. What a lot of people don’t know about the Olympics, the Olympics makes for brands a ton of money, and that’s not always siphoned down. I know Olympic athletes that work part time jobs just to fund to represent Team USA. I know an Olympic athlete this year, she has a bronze medal…didn’t make the team out of injustice, she was homeless, 11 days later, kicked out of the Olympic Training Center. So, I just want the Olympic athletes that are representing our country to have some of those rights that NIL has established. So it’s coming, baby, it’s coming!”
Jones has been vocal against the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee and sports medicine staff. Referencing this viral Instagram post of hers from June 2025 detailing being banned from an Olympic Training Center while suffering from devastating injuries in a Team USA bobsled. “I’ve had three surgeries for this country, broken back, hip, and I’m just like, come on, guys, we got to do better for our athletes, and especially the next Olympics is on home soil, LA, 2028 so we’ve got to represent. We’ve got to take care of our talent, because we want them to defend the home ground.”
Jones tells Today’s Woman she never saw herself entering this advocacy space, speaking up in meetings and elevating athletes who are being overlooked. But she couldn’t bite her tongue any longer as she details, ” I started to help out athletes, showing them that they don’t have to retire when they’re 27. I had so many younger athletes, like Lolo, at 41 when you made the Olympic trials, it just gave me hope, because everybody was pushing them at 28 to retire, and it happens more on the women’s side than the men’s side. You know we have LeBron out there last year. Tom Brady even. We have many examples on the men’s side, but when a woman tries to do it– I had so many DMs, so many comments. ‘Stop. Retire. Girl. Go get married. Go have babies.’ It got nasty.”
Lolo Jones attends the Kentucky Derby 152 at Churchill Downs on May 02, 2026 in Louisville, Kentucky. (Photo by Daniel Boczarski/Getty Images for Churchill Downs)
She’s back. Truly. After a five month hiatus off social media, the work hasn’t stopped behind the scenes, but she’s returned to the spotlight to amplify her efforts and offer a better path for those coming after her. “I’m a hurdler. My job’s to overcome, and they put a lot of hurdles in my place that I did not want to jump over, but here we are, I hope that after it’s all said and done, the next generation will have a better path moving forward, they’ll have more rights, and they’ll have better health care.”
