What to Know
Olympic bobsledder Lolo Jones is making some serious claims against USA Bobsled, including accusing them of mishandling her medical treatment to the point that she almost became paralyzed.
Lolo took to X to encourage people to read a story from Zielhaus that was published last week that includes allegations she’s making against the organization, claiming that she was denied basic care to treat an injury she sustained in March 2025.
Lolo was hurt while testing a new sled.
According to Zielhaus, Lolo was testing out a new sled ahead of the 2025 World Championships in Lake Placid, New York when she suffered a serious injury that caused symptoms including “brutal lower-back pain, numbness, leg instability, foot drop, loss of bladder control.”
These symptoms should have been treated as an emergency, but instead, she went to the Olympic Training Center’s sports medicine clinic for a massage (which was the first step of treatment for her injury) only to find out that her appointment had been canceled because U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) official John Faltus determined that since she was only entitled to one massage per week and had already had one, she could not have a second one, even though she was facing a brand new injury.
She received a scary diagnosis after the World Championships that year.
Why I’ve been off social for so long…
— Lolo Jones (@lolojones) July 28, 2026
For months, I couldn’t talk about this
Please someone help stop what they are doing at USA Bobsled https://t.co/QtagKxVtyL
She competed in the championships anyway, and once she got home, she paid for her own MRI, which revealed that she had a “herniated disc with a disc bulge. Tears in her L3, L4 and L5 vertebrae. Spinal fluid leaking out.”
This diagnosis required her to undergo spinal surgery, and during this time, she was also banned from the Olympic Training Center for a reason that Zielhouse reports was never given to Lolo, with the USOPC making a vague claim that she had “violated the OPTC Code of Conduct.”
To make matters worse, when the time came for USA Bobsled to select the six women who would compete in the World Cup, Lolo wasn’t chosen, even though she’d finished sixth in the Push Championships. And since the athletes representing the US at the Olympics would be chosen from the World Cup team, that meant that Lolo wouldn’t be returning to the winter games.
Now, she’s fighting back.
Everyone thinks crashing is the scariest part of bobsled. Try taking on the machine of @usopc and USA Bobsled to demand basic care for an injured athlete instead.
— Lolo Jones (@lolojones) July 29, 2026
They stripped my rights, completely destroyed me, and no one was held accountable. Finally, the truth is getting… pic.twitter.com/mQc6q3fECp
Over the past several days, Lolo has been speaking out in posts on X, linking out to the stories about her experience.
“Thank you for all the shares and national attention,” she wrote in a post she shared on Wednesday. “Going against the United States Olympic and Paralympic committee was terrifying. They stripped my rights, nearly paralyzed me, and protected themselves with zero accountability. If I didn’t speak out, they would do it to someone else.”
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