Age: 29
Occupation: Canadian bobsleigh athlete; community engagement co-ordinator, KidSport Calgary
Sometimes the smallest moment can be life-changing, like it was for Olympic athlete Eden Wilson. During a chance interaction during WickFest at WinSport with Canadian Olympic bobsledder and track-and-field athlete Phylicia George, George encouraged Wilson to try bobsleigh, despite not having an athletic background. She was 21 at the time.
“I never had any dreams of being a Winter Olympian … because, when I looked on the TV, nobody looked like me. I didn’t see myself as having a spot at that table,” says Wilson, who is Black and Indigenous.
She adds that it’s important for her to let youth know there is room for all in sport. “If you don’t see yourself with a seat at that table, roll up your sleeves and build your own table,” says Wilson. “Because you deserve to be heard, you deserve to be seen.”
Eight years later, Wilson has broken new ground as the first Indigenous athlete to compete in a Bobsleigh World Cup, and the first to represent Team Canada as an Olympic bobsledder in the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics. Wilson’s achievements, along with her work helping young people get involved in sport, were honoured in May during her induction into the North American Indigenous Athletic Hall of Fame.
“My athletic career was never about the medals or the results. It was about how I could attract people who looked like me or identified similar to me to participate in sport,” she says.
Off the track, Wilson works as a community engagement co-ordinator for KidSport Calgary. In 2025, she facilitated raising $4 million that enabled a record 10,000 young people to participate in grassroots Calgary sport programs.
She is also an avid volunteer. Wilson serves on Canadian Sport Institute Alberta’s board of directors, mentors thousands of young people with Classroom Champions and RBC Olympians, and volunteers with RBC Training Ground to identify and engage talent in communities such as Yellowknife, N.W.T., Whitehorse, Yukon, and Thompson, Man.
“Sport is supposed to be this great meritocracy where your race, religion or sexual orientation don’t matter,” says Wilson. “As long as you try hard enough and you put in the effort and the work, you can actually accomplish anything.”
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