The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics are quickly approaching. The opening ceremony is on February 4, only six months after the Tokyo Summer Olympic Games closed. The U.S. delegation will be sending 222 athletes to compete.
Five athletes with Dallas-area ties will be competing, including one representing Puerto Rico.
From figure skaters to skeleton sliders, here are the athletes with North Texas roots that will be aiming for gold in the Beijing Winter Olympics.
Ashley Cain-Gribble was born in Carrollton and raised in Coppell. The 26-year-old pairs figure skater is making her Olympic debut. As the daughter of professional skaters, Cain-Gribble started training at age four and made her first U.S. National Team appearance at age 18.
The early start in skating has proved worthwhile. Cain-Gribble and her skating partner, Timothy LeDuc, have won the U.S. National Championship twice, in 2019 and earlier this month in Nashville, Tenn. The pair have been skating together for six years and currently rank seventh in the International Figure Skating world standings.
Cain-Gribble and LeDuc conduct their training in Euless under the guidance of Cain-Gribble’s father, former professional Australian skater Peter Cain.
Timothy LeDuc grew up in Iowa but has been living in North Texas since 2016 to train with Cain-Gribble.
LeDuc is breaking barriers as the first openly non-binary athlete to compete at an Olympic Games. The 31-year-old also made headlines by publicly speaking out against China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims after winning the national championship with Cain-Gribble earlier this month.
LeDuc started training at age twelve and placed seventh in the 2008 U.S. Championships in the novice men’s category. Since then, Cain-Gribble and LeDuc have competed in over 30 competitions, including two world championships. The pair’s best finish in the world championships came in 2021 when they finished ninth.
LeDuc regularly volunteers with DFW Fuse; an empowerment program focused on HIV awareness and protection.
The figure skating team competition in the Beijing Winter Olympics will be from February 5-7. The figure skating pairs competition will take place from February 19-20.
Kellie Delka is a skeleton racer and will be one of just two athletes representing Puerto Rico in Beijing. She grew up in Collinsville, about 70 miles north of Dallas. She attended the University of North Texas, graduating from there in 2011.
At North Texas, she was a pole vaulter and a cheerleader. She was introduced to skeleton racing by former North Texas football and track star Johnny Quinn.
Delka now lives full-time in Puerto Rico. However, she can train in Texas using a track her dad built using steel, turf, and wheels in their Collinsville backyard.
The 34-year-old is currently ranked 25th in the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation’s (IBSF) Women’s Skeleton rankings. She finished third overall in the 2016-17 European Cup Tour.
Skeleton is a racing sport, where competitors lie down head first on a sled and slide down an icy high-banked luge track reaching speeds of almost 90 mph. The sport’s name comes from the sled’s bony appearance.
The skeleton competition in Beijing is taking place on February 11-12.
Sylvia Hoffman is a 32-year-old bobsledder making her Olympic debut. Hoffman played basketball at Arlington Bowie High School and then Louisiana State University-Shreveport.
After graduating college in 2015, Hoffman began training to make Team USA as a weightlifter. However, scouts recruited her to appear on Team USA’s T.V. show, Next Olympic Hopeful, as a potential bobsledder.
Despite not winning the program, she impressed scouts and was invited to attend a Team USA training camp for rookie bobsledders. In 2018, she was officially given a spot on USA’s bobsleigh team.
In 2020, Hoffman and her pilot Kaillie Humphries won gold at the World Cup in Königssee, Germany. Overall, Hoffman has won seven world cup medals, including two this season. Hoffman and Humphries currently rank fifth in the IBSF 2-Woman Bobsleigh World rankings.
The American women’s bobsledding team has earned medals in every competition since the sport debuted at the Winter Olympics in 2002. This year, the Olympic bobsleigh competitions will occur from February 13-20.
Katie Uhlaender is a 37-year-old skeleton racer and is one of just four Team USA athletes making their fifth appearance in the Winter Olympics. The others are snowboarders Shaun White and Lindsey Jacobellis, and curler John Shuster.
As a five-time Olympian, she has competed in all but one of the six-ever U.S. Skeleton teams to compete at the Winter Games since the sport debuted in 2002.
Uhlaender has yet to win a medal in any of her Olympic appearances but came incredibly close in Sochi in 2014, finishing in fourth place by four-hundredths of a second.
Uhlaender was born in the Central Texas city of McGregor and trains for skeleton racing in Colorado. However, she has lived in Frisco since 2015, where she trains as a track cyclist and works for the Carrick Brain Center in Irving.
Currently, Uhlaender is ranked 13th in the IBSF Women’s Skeleton rankings. She has won 32 total medals in World individual and team competitions, including 14 gold medals.
The skeleton competition in Beijing is scheduled for February 11-12.
