She was just walking through the mall, minding her own business when it happened.
That’s when a L’eggs Pantyhose representative approached a 20-something Dolores Jones about a modeling gig. After a few phone calls with the representative, Jones started with radio spots, then a TV commercial. The latter included her answering the question “How did it feel when you put them on?” and footage of her walking down stairs. Well, more specifically, of her legs walking down stairs.
“I don’t know what they liked. They liked something,” Jones replied with a laugh when asked if the L’eggs representative was intrigued by her limbs.
But given her athletic background, it’s no surprise the now 61-year-old has stems to envy.
At Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia, she ran the 100- and 200-meter events in track and was a cheerleader. After graduating from college, she helped qualify a tennis team for a national championship and has dabbled in gymnastics. And this week she’s competing in her second CrossFit Games in Madison, Wisconsin, in the Masters Women 60+ Division after finishing 20th overall in 2017. She also was featured in the Louisville, Kentucky, magazine “Today’s Woman” Best Bodies issue published this month.
Still, Jones had a moment of bashfulness when she got her first look at her Reebok competitor bootie shorts.
Then she put them on.
“’Oh! But look!’” her coach Madison Kleinhenz said, impersonating Jones with a sly smile.
Jones laughed.
She’s still got it.
Jones, a U.S. Navy brat who mostly grew up in Connecticut, was raised during “the era of Twiggy,” a rail-thin English model whose real name is Lesley Lawson.
Girls and women in the 60s idolized her figure, wanting to be skinny, even emaciated.
So did Jones.
But she wasn’t built like that. She was slim but athletic. She had visible muscles, not visible ribs.
Eventually Jones learned to embrace her frame—and its abilities.
“I’ve learned to really accept my body,” she said minutes after her second event of Wednesday, which included handstand walking and wall-ball shots. “No, I’m not perfect, but I’m perfect for me.”
At 5-foot-5, the CrossFit Bluegrass athlete is just shy of a lean 140 lb.
Her goal this year is simple: “Just to do my very best.”
