Photos by Miles Cull

Strong Bones

Nicholas Dunn Is Training For The 2026 Milan Winter Olympics For More Than Just Himself

By Ryan Pearl

For Nicholas Dunn, growing up meant surfing off the beaches of the greater San Diego area. It meant salty waters that textured his flowing black hair, and warm sunshine that tanned his olive skin. It was home.

But home is where the heart is, and Dunn’s heart, like his smile, is big enough to span multiple interests, sports, and countries. His extended family is from Canada, and in 2010, Dunn visited and attended the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

“The energy was crazy and I loved how it brought everyone together,” says Dunn.

At the games, he was drawn to one event in particular called skeleton. Donning helmets and sleek gear, the competitors slid on their bellies down the twists and turns of the snake-like track.  

This day signaled a change in Dunn’s relationship with sports, right down to the very state of its matter. The ocean water he had swam and surfed had solidified into ice as fast and sleek as those skeleton uniforms.

Dunn grew up as an only child with his single mother, Maria. Maria is Canadian- born, making Dunn a dual citizen by birthright. She came to the United States to pursue a career in newscasting. Dunn and his mother always had each other. 

“I ran a tight ship because I was alone and I was raising a boy,” says Maria. “And I told him, ‘If you get in trouble, you’d better hope they put you in jail because if I get you, you’re dead.’”

Dunn never got in trouble, and he did well in school. He played football and ran track and field at Coronado High School, setting records for the latter as a top sprinter.

But it wasn’t always easy. Seven years ago, Maria was diagnosed with cancer. At only 15 years old, Dunn was suddenly caring for his mother, the person who had always cared for him.

He attended football and track and field practice before rushing home to help his mom with her medication, or getting up out of bed when she was too sick to do so by herself. Even in the face of these obstacles, Dunn continued to excel. And Maria did, too. She beat cancer, and in 2019 saw her son off to college at the University of Oregon (UO), where he would spend his next four years studying human physiology with the eventual goal of becoming a chiropractor.

In 2022, Dunn walked-on to the Ducks football team as a running back, once again putting his hard work and natural speed to use. Still, there were times, especially as he dove deeper into his studies, that even those closest to him wondered why he continued to push himself to such lengths as an athlete.

“He was going into sports medicine and I sort of thought, ‘What are you training for? To be the fastest doctor around?’” says Maria. But she says there was always something that told him and others he would be great. 

He graduated from UO in 2023, and currently resides in Portland, where he attends the University of Western States, working toward earning a white coat as a chiropractor. In March  2024, he went up to Calgary to see his family during his spring break. His uncle lives only about five minutes away from Canada Olympic Park (COP), a multi-purpose facility where the Canadian Olympic teams train. Open to the public, the gym junkie went to COP to workout.

He was lifting and running sprints just like any other day. But unbeknownst to him, he had entered the facility through the wrong door. Dunn was not in the public workout space but rather the Olympians’ area, training among some of the greatest athletes in the world. Decked out in Oregon Ducks gear, with lats as big as tree trunks, no one batted an eye at the idea of Dunn being another Olympian. 

Then, suddenly, Dunn was approached by a man who was so impressed by Dunn’s physical stature and workout intensity that he told him he had what it takes to compete for a spot as a Canadian Skeleton athlete.

This wasn’t just a nice compliment from an average guy, but from the head coach of the Canadian national skeleton team. Dunn exchanged contact information with the coaches, and started training right away.

Suddenly, that “something” within Dunn had been found — and it was about to hurl him down an ice track head-first at close to 100 miles per hour.

Skeleton returned to the Winter Olympic Games in 2002 after a 54-year hiatus. It is similar to individual bobsled racing, where an athlete dressed in a tight-fitting uniform and a helmet that looks like it was made for motorcycle racing pushes their sled (or skeleton bobsled) — a small board with an alarming lack of harnesses or seat belts — across the ice until it reaches a high enough speed for them to get on in a prone position and hold on for dear life as they are whipped around the track at blurring speeds.

Suddenly, a southern California kid who had never been on a skeleton sled in his life, was shouldered with immense expectations. Nonetheless, he braced himself for the opportunity of a lifetime.

Dunn is now forced to wear long sleeve shirts because his arms are covered with purple bruises from hitting the side of the walls during his runs. Yet, his attitude remains infectiously positive. 

“It’s weird to say, but it’s probably one of the only times where I feel relaxed doing something. I feel like I’m surfing. I’m still surfing. It’s just on ice,” says Dunn. “When a wave comes up and it starts lipping, that’s what the ice looks like when we come in on the side, and I realize when it’s curving up like that I’m like, ‘Tthis is basically like a frozen wave.’”

Despite all the bangs and bruises, Dunn caught onto the sport remarkably fast. Like the coaches foresaw, in less than ten months, he has gone from a skeleton novice to being fast enough to compete with the best in the world.

Being a part of the UO football team was instrumental in his development as a skeleton athlete. He compared pushing the skeleton to summer workouts on the gridiron pushing blocking sleds, except his skeleton helmet feels significantly lighter and more comfortable than a football helmet.

The greatest challenges for Dunn on this journey prove to be external. There are no skeleton training facilities in Portland, so Dunn must make do with what he has, which includes pushing heavy objects on turf to train — – a practice not dissimilar from pushing blocking sleds back in college. A skeleton competitor can only do a few runs a week because of the physical toll it takes on their body. Nearly every day, after and in between classes, Dunn is in the weight room.

Unlike football, skeleton is not popular or well-known in North America, and while the title of “Olympian” holds a lot of weight, the stipend for such athletes does not.

Dunn’s mother, Maria, is incredibly successful, but sponsoring an Olympian hopeful is a tall task for anyone, and she remains a single parent. The expense of traveling to different competitions on top of his chiropractic school really adds up. As a result, Nicholas and Maria created a GoFundMe that they have shared on social media to help mitigate the costs. They have successfully raised over $9,500 in the hopes that Dunn can realize his dreams of being an Olympian.

The skeleton competitions that precede the Olympics are split up into different subsets: one focuses on pushing the sled, the other focuses on piloting it. Then, in major competitions, the athletes put it all together.

Dunn vividly remembers his first push competition which was in, of all places, Calgary. His mother and extended family were all in attendance and a part of the raucous crowd waving cowbells with such vigor they threatened to crack the ice. Yet, Dunn was more focused than ever. 

“What pumps me up is family being there. That is a big reason why I enjoy doing sports so much and why I love doing anything because I love to represent who I come from,” says Dunn.

Not only is Dunn half-Canadian, he is also a proud Filipino-American. “You don’t see a lot of us in sports, so it’s crucial to represent where I come from,” says Dunn. 

All of the intersections of Dunn’s strong identity weave together to help him weave down the track.

In the midst of a cacophony of cowbells and the swelling of nerves that awaits him, Dunn will rely on his experiences and internal fortitude to guide him along the tracks. It is these strong bones that make him who he is: a force to be reckoned with.