Team GB star Ashleigh Nelson opens up on her radical switch of sport in bid to make Winter Olympics after receiving shock message amid Paris heartbreak - and why she was 'terrified' debuting in new field
Team GB star Ashleigh Nelson opens up on her radical switch of sport in bid to make Winter Olympics after receiving shock message amid Paris heartbreak - and why she was 'terrified' debuting in new field
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When Ashleigh Nelson missed out on a place at Paris 2024, she thought her Olympic days were over. But then came an Instagram message which changed the Stoke sprinter’s sporting life. The sender was Adele Nicoll, the two-time British shot put champion turned bobsledder, who asked her fellow track and field athlete: ‘Would you consider coming to try bobsleigh?’.
![[In track and field, Nelson picked up medals in the 4x100 metres relay at world, European and Commonwealth level]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/12/21/94017809-0-image-a-2_1736718659754.jpg)
Nelson immediately replied with four laughing emojis and six months on she is still chuckling. Only she is now a fully fledged member of the Great Britain bobsleigh team, bidding to become just the second British woman after Montell Douglas to be selected for both a summer and winter Olympic Games in different sports.
![[The 33-year-old is now part of the bobsleigh team and has set sights on 2026 Winter Olympics]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/12/21/94017923-0-image-a-3_1736718730555.jpg)
‘I keep giggling because I am like, “How have I ended up here?”,’ the 33-year-old tells Mail Sport from St Moritz in Switzerland, where the latest World Cup bobsleigh event was held at the weekend. ‘It’s all happened so quickly. But I’ll give it absolutely everything and if I make the Olympics, I will be absolutely ecstatic. It would mean a lot to me.
![[Nelson's switch came after a conversation with Adele Nicoll (pictured), the two-time British shot put champion turned bobsledder]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/12/21/94018053-0-image-a-5_1736719170824.jpg)
‘Other than Montell, there’s nobody else that’s done it from a British female perspective. So I’d love to go down in the history books.’. Ashleigh Nelson missed out on place at Paris 2024 but hasn't looked back since then. In track and field, Nelson picked up medals in the 4x100 metres relay at world, European and Commonwealth level.
![[She was selected for Beijing 2008, Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 before last year's disappointment]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/12/21/94017983-0-image-a-4_1736718944746.jpg)
The 33-year-old is now part of the bobsleigh team and has set sights on 2026 Winter Olympics. In track and field, Nelson picked up medals in the 4x100 metres relay at world, European and Commonwealth level. She was also the first British woman in 40 years to win an individual European 100m medal when she claimed bronze in 2014.
![[Dina Asher-Smith is one of Nelson’s many friends from the world of track and field]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/12/22/94018063-0-image-a-6_1736719229244.jpg)
