Toronto athlete Shaquille Murray-Lawrence’s path to the Olympics started in an entirely different sport — one that doesn’t even exist in the Games. A professional football player in the CFL, it was his power and speed on the field as a running back that caught the eye of recruiters for Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton in 2017.
It’s a pipeline well-travelled now by quite a few CFL and NFL players — one that was forged, in Murray-Lawrence’s eyes, by Jesse Lumsden. The former CFL athlete made the transition to bobsleigh back in 2010, competing in three Olympic Games.
“You’ve got to be fast; you’ve got to be strong,” Murray-Lawrence says of the connection between the two sports. “I do think the grit and the resilience that football players have makes it an easy transition for us for other sports.”
Heading into the 2026 Milano Cortina Games, this will be Murray-Lawrence’s Olympic debut — the 32-year-old was named as an alternate on Team Canada for bobsleigh at the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing.
“I would say the theme of the last four years has been redemption,” he says. “I earned a spot on that roster [in 2022] and I was snubbed because politics and stuff got involved.”
In 2022, more than 60 athletes signed a letter sent to the Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton’s board of directors, calling for the resignation of the president and high performance director at the time. The letter addressed issues such as safety, transparency and governance, alleging that staff have made decisions on team selection based on biases.
Murray-Lawrence, along with multiple other bobsledders of colour, have called out systemic racism within the national bobsled organization.
The former CFL athlete says he decided to stick it out after the 2022 Olympics with one goal in mind: “I had to make sure I was undoubtedly the best at my position for all four years.”
“My coaches always told me, ‘Don’t make it close. If you make it close, you’re leaving it up to chance,’” he says. “That way, there’s no chance of me being snubbed.”
Murray-Lawrence was undoubtedly successful, securing a spot on both the two-man and four-man bobsled teams for the 2026 Olympics.
Name: Shaquille Murray-Lawrence
Hometown: Scarborough
Sport: Bobsleigh
First Olympic event: Feb. 16, 2-man bobsleigh
Social channels: @shaqmlawrence
With his first event, two-man bobsleigh, just a few days away, he’s staying focused. “I’m hoping to bring home some hardware; that’s the ultimate goal. I think that would cement my athletic legacy,” he says. “I’ve dominated in two different fields, one summer sport and one winter, so this would just cement everything I’ve done and put in when it comes to my athletic career.”
Regardless of the results, he’s fulfilling a dream he’s had since he was a kid: “I always knew I was born and destined to do something great in sports.”
Murray-Lawrence says he was told by teachers to “have a plan B,” but he didn’t listen. “My plan B was my plan A,” he says.
When people talk about how dangerous winter Olympic sports are compared to the summer Olympics, it’s often sports like bobsleigh that come to mind. Speeding down an ice track in a 600-kilogram sled at up to 150 km/h, the threat of injury is high. It’s an aspect of the sport covered in last month’s three-part CBC documentary Redemption Run, following Canada’s bobsleigh athletes (including Murray-Lawrence) on the road to the Olympics.
But the bobsledder says the danger is just not something he can think too much about. “There’s just not a lot that’s in your control as a brakeman. Once you’re done pushing, it’s kind of between God and the pilot and Mother Nature.”
Mindset-wise, Murray-Lawrence says football has more than prepared him for the world stage of the Olympics. “Going into every race, I just have to have that swagger, that attitude that I had on the football field. I may not fit into whatever typical mould people think of; I’m from Scarborough, I wear it on my sleeve, proud of it, and I will not change for anyone,” he says. “I think that has helped me in this sport. I’m able to just be free. You get on the block, and it’s just you versus you.”
We’ll be profiling more athletes during the 2026 Winter Olympics; refer here for future coverage.
