Jay Dearborn

Biography

Jay Dearborn made his Olympic debut at Beijing 2022 where he was part of the four-man crew that raced with pilot Taylor Austin.

He made his move to the pilot seat in 2023-24 and spent that season developing his driving skills on the North American Cup circuit. He returned to the North American Cup in 2024-25, earning his first podiums as a pilot. He made his first IBSF World Cup start as a pilot in February 2025 and drove at the IBSF World Championships. In 2025-26 he reached the podium in 12 of 14 North American Cup races across the two-man and four-man events.

Dearborn’s sport background is in football. Signed as an undrafted free agent, Jay Dearborn played 14 games for the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League in 2019, which included a trip to the Western Division Final. He had been cut from the team at the end of training camp in June, only to get a call back in early July. During the few weeks that he thought his football career was over, he had been introduced to a recruiter for the national bobsleigh team. 

In early 2020, Dearborn attended a weekend introduction to bobsleigh event in Whistler where he had the opportunity to ride from the top of the ice track and learn a little about driving a sled. He knew immediately that he enjoyed the technical side of the sport and the work that goes into perfecting a five-second push. So, when the 2020 CFL season was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Dearborn decided to attend the national bobsleigh team tryouts in Calgary that fall. He secured a spot on the development squad.   

When the CFL got back into action in 2021, Dearborn appeared in eight games for the Roughriders. Just a couple of weeks after his last game, he was in Lake Placid for his first international bobsleigh race on the North American Cup circuit. With pilot Taylor Austin, he won a silver medal in the two-man event. After one more North American Cup race, Dearborn made his World Cup debut in January 2022 as the brakeman for Christopher Spring in a two-man race in Winterberg. When Austin made his World Cup debut a week later in St. Moritz, Dearborn re-joined him in the two-man. He also competed in his first international four-man race, finishing fifth with pilot Justin Kripps. 

Dearborn appeared in one more CFL game with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in 2023. He played football with Holland College in Prince Edward Island before heading to Carleton University in the OUA. Playing defense with the Ravens for three years, he ended his collegiate career with 50.5 tackles and 7 interceptions.

A Little More About Jay

Getting into the sport: Attended his first national team camp in 2020… First attended pilot school near the end of the 2019-20 season in Whistler… Enjoyed learning the technical side of bobsleigh… Outside Interests: Earned an Industrial Electrical diploma from Holland College in 2016… Studied Sustainable and Renewable Energy Engineering at Carleton University; completed in 2023… Enjoys nature and landscape photography and videography, hiking, camping, whitewater paddling… Affiliated with the Boys and Girls Club – South East… Odds and Ends: Always travels with a track and field spike given to him by a high school coach as good luck… Favourite motto: “Everybody wants to be a bobsledder, but don’t nobody wanna lift no heavy ass sled”…