Three-time Olympian Lolo Jones says Team USA 'abandoned' her after harrowing spinal injury

Lolo Jones is not backing down after a harrowing experience with Team USA.

In February 2025, Jones climbed into a team-issued bobsled at the Olympic training complex in Lake Placid, New York. The U.S. team was testing equipment before the World Championships. The sled accelerated down the ice at speeds approaching 90 mph.

At the bottom of the track, Jones knew something was wrong.

Her lower back burned. She could not bend over. She had lost control of her bladder.

"Ive never had that happen to me ever in (my) life," Jones said. "I immediately went up to the athletic trainer and told him what was happening."

Jones was no inexperienced athlete struggling to read her body. She competed at the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics as a hurdler and the 2014 Winter Olympics as a bobsled brakewoman. She had won world championships in both sports.

She understood pain. This felt different.

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A trainer arranged a treatment for her, but Jones says the head of sports medicine at the Lake Placid training center canceled it because she had already received treatment that week.

Jones arrived for the appointment without knowing it had been canceled.

She was hurt, frightened and days away from the biggest race of the season. 

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Then Jones received notice that officials had revoked her access to sports medicine, she says, and a broader ban later kept her out of the Olympic training facility, including its rehabilitation areas, weight room, housing and push track.

The notice said her behavior violated the facilitys code of conduct, she says, but Jones claims officials never identified the specific rule she broke or gave her a formal hearing before imposing the punishment.

According to reporting by the Southern California News Group, Jones and other people familiar with the case said USOPC officials later acknowledged that the approved treatment should not have been canceled. Jones apologized during a meeting before the World Championships.

The restrictions remained.

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"I voiced my frustration that athletes should have medical access," Jones said. "It just continued to escalate."

The symptoms Jones described demanded more than a routine massage.

Severe back pain combined with bladder dysfunction ca