Alumna enters third Olympics on Team Jamaica’s bobsled team

Jazmine Fenlator-Victorian '07 will become a three-time Olympian when she represents Team Jamaica in the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China. 

A former Rider track and field standout and the University’s 2019 Commencement speaker, Fenlator-Victorian will participate in the women’s monobob, an individual version of bobsled that is making its Olympic debut this year. 

She made her Olympic debut at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, competing as a pilot for Team USA in bobsled. In the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, she became a member of the first all-women’s Jamaican bobsled team. Fenlator-Victorian, who is a dual citizen of both the United States and Jamaica, switched her affiliation to Jamaica in an effort to increase diversity in the sport and create representation of multiple cultures.

In addition to navigating the challenges of traveling and competing during a pandemic, Fenlator-Victorian is facing personal adversity this year as well. Last month, she posted on Instagram that she unexpectedly lost her sister, Angelica Fenlator, in December. 

“I plan to be boisterous about the journey of grief,” Fenlator-Victorian told NJ.com. “I want people to know, yeah, I’m going to be a three-time Olympian and social media makes it look like I have it together, but that doesn’t mean I’m not just like you. Hopefully, someone will hear what I’m saying and not feel alone.”

Competing in this year's game will perhaps end a run of remarkable athletic achievements for Fenlator-Victorian. Her bobsled career began after encouragement to try the sport in 2007 from former Rider coach Robert Pasquariello. In 2014 she became Rider’s first-ever Olympian, and she is also the University's first NCAA Track & Field Regional automatic qualifier. 

Fenlator-Victorian was named Rider Women’s Athlete of the Year twice and earned All-East honors eight times in the shot put, weight throw and the discus, setting Rider records in all three events along with the hammer. She was elected to the Rider Athletics Hall of Fame in 2015, her first year of eligibility. 

Now 36, Fenlator-Victorian earned a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism with a minor in advertising from Rider, a Master of Science with a focus in performance enhancement and injury prevention from California University of Pennsylvania, and a Master of Business Administration from DeVry University with a concentration in marketing. In 2019, Rider awarded her an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters.

The Opening Ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics is scheduled to take place on Friday, Feb. 4.