The Winter Olympics And The BibleНамуна

Lolo Jones Touts the Bible as Source of Strength Throughout Olympic Run

Olympic hurdler Lolo Jones turned bobsled athlete has dealt with many public disappointments throughout her career. At every turn, however, she has been equally public about the source of her strength in both the good times and (especially) the bad times.

“I had to constantly remind myself, ‘When I am weak, He is strong,” Jones told the Gospel Herald in 2015 while paraphrasing 2 Corinthians 12:10. “I’m really telling myself, ‘I can’t do this in my own strength.’ Even the Word says it’s not by your strength, it’s by God.”

Despite winning two world indoor championships in the 100-meter hurdles, Jones is often remembered more for failing to medal at the Summer Olympics. She was the leading the 100-meter final at the 2008 Beijing Games before infamously clipping the next-to-last hurdle and stumbling to a seventh-place finish. At the 2012 London Games, Jones missed out on a bronze medal by a mere one tenth of a second. An injury kept her from qualifying for the 2016 Rio Games.

In 2012, Jones began working towards another Olympic dream—this time as a bobsledder. She qualified for the 2014 Sochi Games in the USA-3 sled with driver Jazmine Fenlator. The day before her first two rounds of competition, she tweeted a message to her teammate along with an inspirational Bible verse:

“Who through Him are believers in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.” (1 Peter 1:21, NASB)

In January 2017, Jones tweeted that her New Year’s resolution was to “read the Bible in its entirety in 90 days.”

As the bobsled season approached and preparation for the 2018 Winter Olympics began, she challenged her Twitter followers to also look to the Bible for inspiration:

“Speak Bible verses over yourself. Declare it. Inject hope when there is none.”