‘Other’ U.S. team wins gold, ends sled drought

By Liz Clarke

The Washington Post

PARK CITY, Utah – In the end, the decision that brought bobsledder Jean Racine so much criticism cost her a shot at the ultimate prize, an Olympic medal.

And the overlooked Americans who had steered clear of controversy in the months leading up to the 2002 Winter Games – driver Jill Bakken and brakeman Vonetta Flowers – sped past at a blistering pace to claim the gold medal instead and, with it, a place in sports history.

There wasn’t a relative Bakken didn’t hug in the joyous moments afterward, leaping over the track’s icy retaining wall and into the arms of her mother, siblings, aunts and uncles – all of them screaming, crying and chanting her name, as they had all afternoon, alongside the equally jubilant Flowers family.

It was the first time women’s bobsledding had been contested in the 78-year history of the Winter Games. And Bakken and Flowers routed the field, setting a track record in their first run over the snaking, Bear Hollow course at Utah Olympic Park to set a standard not even the best Europeans could top as a capacity crowd of 14,956 cheered them on.

With their performance, completing two runs in 1 minute, 37.76 seconds, they also brought an end to the United States’ long record of futility in Olympic bobsled competition, becoming the first Americans to win a medal in the sport in 46 years.

“This is a dream come true for me,” said Flowers, who was still sobbing an hour afterward. Informed she was the first African-American to win a gold medal in a Winter Olympics, Flowers added: “That’s awesome. Hopefully this will be the end of it (being a rarity). And it will encourage other African-American girls and boys to give winter sports a try.”

Sandra Prokoff and Ulrike Holzner took silver in Germany’s top sled with a time (1.38.06) that was three-tenths of a second slower than Bakken and Flowers in USA-2.

Susi-Lisa Erdmann and Nicole Herschmann (1.38.29) took bronze in Germany-2.

Racine, meanwhile, who went from being bobsledding’s poster girl to bad girl after firing her longtime brakeman Jen Davidson just days before the U.S. Olympic trials, finished fifth (1.28.73) – well out of medal contention.

And it was the poor pushing of Gea Johnson – the former heptathlete and weight-lifter whom she chose as Davidson’s replacement – that handicapped her Tuesday.

Hobbled by a strained hamstring in her left leg, Johnson got the USA-1 sled off to a horrible start in the first of its two runs, with a push time (5.54 seconds) that ranked 13th among the 15 teams in the field. Racine, a two-time World Cup champion, did a masterful piece of driving to compensate, steering clear of the icy track walls to bring it home fifth – lagging a half-second behind USA-2.

But Johnson’s push on the second run was even slower – 5.58 seconds, or 14th fastest. Johnson left the course of crutches, the injury more serious than team officials had indicated after she first strained the hamstring in a training run on Saturday. Racine was among the first to congratulate Bakken, choking back tears as she gave her teammate a hug and said, “I’m so proud of you!”

And a tearful Johnson told reporters: “I feel really horrible that I disappointed her, my country and everybody.”

It was an ironic, bitter and sweet ending to a competition that had been shrouded in controversy for months.

The drama started when Racine fired Davidson, her brakeman of four years, after an 11th place finish in a World Cup event in November. Davidson sought to regain her place on the team through arbitration. But an arbitrator ruled in Racine’s favor, clearing the way for her pairing with the stronger, heftier Johnson, a 1990 NCAA heptathlon champion at Arizona State who was later banned from track and field for four years after testing positive for an anabolic steroid. The switch was made solely to give Racine a competitive edge, but it left her with a tarnished image.

Corporate America had latched onto the telegenic pairing of Racine and Davidson, anointing them the darling of the 2002 Winter Games and rewarding them with $500,000 worth of sponsorships that landed them on a cereal box, in a “Got Milk?” commercial and in ads for Visa, General Motors, GNC and Northwest Mutual.

Even as the pairing dissolved, interest in the breakthrough sport remained high.

Tuesday’s triumph was something Bakken and her family had dreamt about for years. The Bakken and Flowers fans lined the finish, toting hand-lettered signs that read, “Go Jill! Don’t Spill!”