“Honestly, if it wasn’t for social media, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing now,” Johnson said of her bobsled career, which evolved from a disastrous injury-filled run that included multiple foot surgeries and an invitation from her Olympic sledding partner Sarah Blizzard. A fracture in her back (L4) prevented her from continuing in the heptathlon.

Johnson, a former sprinter turned heptathlete ranked No. 1 in Australia at under-18 level, started out as a rising star on TikTok and Instagram (she has around 200,000 YouTube fans), but her start as a heptathlete during the pandemic was as she described what she calls a “journey.”

“I started training at home… During the lockdown, people started noticing it. The video went viral and after the lockdown, I started showing everyone my journey, my injuries and trying to get back to sprinting.”

Her following started primarily on TikTok, but has also grown on Instagram. She reached 500,000 posts as an athlete just before crossing over to bobsledding. Once she hopped on the sleigh, the numbers looked like the Kardashians.

“Then I started blogging about my bobsledding trips, too, and people were hooked.”

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One indicator of the social media avalanche is that between this masthead statement and publication, Desi’s Instagram count increased by another 100,000 to 1.3 million. She had made the same leap to Maximus level as Qrow, but this was unlikely to prove her maximum.

“I didn’t know you could monetize it,” she said of her current full-time job as a social media performer. “And when I actually did it, it was honestly unbelievable.

“I took this on as a full-time job about two years ago, and it’s just incredible how it’s worked out.”

Her largest online fan base is in the United States and Australia, followed by Europe.

It was in 2023 that Johnson made the switch from track and field to bobsledding (along with a flirtation with rugby sevens). It took just three years for her to become an Olympian in a hitherto alien sport that few knew existed.

“To be honest, I had no idea what this sport actually was. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I’d never touched snow or been to Europe.”

Bobsleds are expensive, and the pair of monobob sleds and two-person sleds her racing partner Blizzard bought for them cost about $60,000 each.

“We’re completely self-funded, the same way we’ve been raising money overseas for months in Europe,” Johnson said.

Johnson and Blizzard are as unlikely Olympians in bobsled as Jamaica’s famous cool runners. Ms Johnson, a sled-breaking woman, grew up in Queensland, five hours from the Gold Coast, where most of her immediate family now lives. Sled pilot Blizzard, from Ararat in western Victoria, is also an athletics fugitive and has competed in four Stawell Gift finals.

The expectations for this pair in Cortina are, well, not that great. The bobsled team race is owned by the Germans, followed by Americans in line. Because they spent millions of dollars and now they have a faster sled with F1 style technology.

At speeds of up to 80 mph, bobsledding appears to be slightly safer than rappelling. But for Johnson, the sport proved to be a refuge from the injuries that plague track and field.

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“I feel much healthier and safer playing this sport,” she said.

No matter where her sled ends this Olympics, Desi Johnson will be in the spotlight.

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