Oct. 31—HIGH POINT — Jenna Weidner would be the first person to tell you she's not exactly an ideal candidate for the U.S. women's bobsled team.
"I'm an accountant, so personality-wise, there's nothing about me to suggest that I would enjoy bobsledding," the 23-year-old 2020 High Point University graduate says with a laugh. "I don't even drive fast in my car."
So why would Weidner enjoy a sport in which she hurtles down an icy track at breakneck speeds — typically faster than 80 mph — while enduring crushing G-forces that take a massive toll on her body? Not to mention the toll it takes on her body when she crashes, which, unfortunately, is not uncommon.
But when Weidner, who played four years of collegiate volleyball at HPU, got an email from Team USA Coach Mike Kohn to gauge her interest in bobsledding — and after hesitantly deciding the email was legitimate — she asked herself a simple question:
Why not?
"I was nervous," Weidner says, "but my mentality through this whole bobsledding experience has been, 'Why not? Why not at least try?' "
More than a year later, she's a member of Team USA's development team, training for a shot at the 2026 Winter Olympics. She's training as a pilot in the two-woman bobsled competition, and in the women's new monobob event for solo bobsledders.
Why not indeed?
Weidner was one of numerous recently graduated college athletes — largely from "explosive sports" such as volleyball, football, weightlifting, and track and field — who received Kohn's bobsled recruiting pitch. Most of them declined because they weren't interested or didn't want to learn a new sport, but Weidner responded out of curiosity, if for no other reason.
"I know nothing about bobsledding," she told Kohn.
"That doesn't mean we can't train you," he replied.
Weidner's next step was to submit a video of herself sprinting, throwing a medicine ball and doing the broad jump. Team USA coaches analyzed the video to assess her potential, and they obviously saw something they liked — enough that they invited her to a rookie camp at Utah Olympic Park in Park City, Utah, where the bobsledding competition took place during the 2002 Winter Olympics.
The point of the rookie camp was for Weidner to try the sport and see whether she actually liked it. While the accountant gene in Weidner's DNA still said no, her curiosity gene still said, "Why not?" As a result, her first time down the track was both exhilarating and terrifying.