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

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?’

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.

‘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.

‘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.’

In track and field, Nelson picked up medals in the 4×100 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.

Nelson was just 17 when she was picked as a relay squad member for her first Olympics at Beijing 2008, alongside her older brother Alex. She also earned selection for Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020.

But when ankle surgery put paid to her hopes of making it to a fourth summer Games last year, she was resigned to a life away from elite sport. 

‘When I had surgery in August 2023, I knew it was going to be tough to get back, but I was at peace with it,’ insists Nelson, whose cousin Curtis Nelson is a defender at Derby County. ‘I kind of put it to rest and said, “If I never make an Olympics again, I’m actually happy with all the effort that I’ve put in”.

‘When I didn’t make Paris, I was like, “OK, I need to decide whether we’re going to carry on with athletics, try and go to the World Championships next year, or if that’s the end”.

‘And just as I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do, Adele slid into my DMs!’

In that message last July, Nicoll told Nelson that her speed, power and strength were perfectly suited to pushing a sled. Nicoll saw similarities between the 5ft 9in Nelson and the 5ft 10in Douglas, the former sprinter and now Gladiators and Strictly Come Dancing star, who competed in the two-woman bobsleigh at Beijing 2022.

‘I’d followed Adele on Instagram because she’s also an athlete, we’ve got mutual friends, and I’d liked some of her posts over a period of time,’ explains Nelson. ‘Adele and Montell were brakewomen together and I’m built like Montell, so she was probably thinking, “She looks like she might fit”.

‘When she messaged, I just laughed because it was like, “Oh gosh, what am I going to get myself into now?”. A few weeks later, I went down to the push track at Bath to give it a go.

‘The first couple of times I went down, I called my mum and said, “I don’t know if this is for me”. Then I did it a few more times, and I was like, “No, this is for me”.

‘As much as I love athletics, and I still do, after a while you can lose that buzz. But bobsleigh has just given me a whole new lease of life and a whole new excitement about being an athlete.

‘There is also an element of danger that’s involved that isn’t involved in track and field. It gives you that extra bit of adrenaline. You’re going down some of the runs at 80 to 90 miles per hour, which is quite terrifying. But when you’re an athlete and a bit of a thrill seeker anyway, it’s quite exciting.’

Nelson was officially selected for the British team before Christmas, just two months after her first run on ice. She is currently the spare brakewoman to 20-year-old Kya Placide, but she made her debut with pilot Nicoll at a World Cup event in Winterberg last weekend, placing 21st.

‘I really, really enjoyed it and everybody was really impressed,’ says Nelson. ‘My mum watched the race and said, “I felt sick, but it was wonderful!”.

‘I am hoping to get a few more races before the end of the season and it’s the World Championships in March. It’ll be tough to try and get in the spot because I’m up against another fantastic athlete in Kya. But that makes it exciting as well. I’m used to competing with Dina Asher-Smith and Daryll Neita. It’s great training with her because iron sharpens iron.’

Asher-Smith, the former world 200m champion, is one of Nelson’s many friends from track and field who have wished her well in her new venture.

‘She messaged me and was so supportive, then we jumped on FaceTime and she was like, “I’ve just got a good feeling about this for you, Ash”,’ says Nelson. ‘So I’m going to take Dina Asher-Smith’s good feeling and run with it!’

Good feelings will only get Nelson so far, however. While she is hopeful she will receive low-level Lottery funding, she will need to drum up sponsorship if she is to be able to realise her new Olympic dream.

‘As I’m learning, it’s an incredibly expensive sport,’ adds Nelson. ‘We left home on December 28 and we’re not going to go home until the middle of March.

‘I just found out my apparel sponsor is no longer going to be sponsoring me next year. So I’m going to be trying to find a new apparel sponsor, or see if I can find anybody who would like to sponsor myself or the team. Hopefully I can reach out to people who have seen my career, believe in me and want to help myself and two other women fulfil their dreams.’