(NEXSTAR) -- In 2025, Mystique Ro became the first American to win a world medal at an event in skeleton. Pair that with gold in mix doubles skeleton, which makes its Olympic debut here in Cortina and she rolls into the Olympics with momentum. A native of Nokesville, Virginia, Ro originally dreamed of becoming an Olympian in track and field. She was a standout heptathlon athlete at Queens of Charlotte University and found the sport of bobsled after graduation. Her small size steered her to skeleton, where she began turning heads in the sport. Ro now trains full-time in Lake Placid, New York, wearing red, white and blue in Italy. She describes the sport as "controlled chaos." The transition has led to international success, which Rowe noted is important for the United States team. "To start to break these droughts, to start to bring more hardware, it's just like reassuring that we are good contenders for the sport. That we are, as a nation, we deserve to be on the platform and on those podium spots," Ro said. "And this is a collective win. We're all doing this together. Like, I would not be here without the support of everyone who said a prayer to, you know, sense any type of resources, because it's such a team effort, honestly." Women's skeleton competition is scheduled to begin Friday, Feb. 13. Rowe and her partner, skeleton athlete Austin Florin, will take part in the mixed doubles competition on Feb. 15. All facts in this report were gathered by journalists employed by Nexstar. Artificial intelligence tools were used to reformat from a broadcast script into a news article for our website. This report was edited and fact-checked by Nexstar staff before being published