Lesser known team of Jill Bakken-Vonetta Flowers stuns field
02/20/2002
PARK CITY, Utah – Jean Racine's lips quivered and tears welled in her eyes
as gold medal-decibel chants of "U-S-A, U-S-A" rang in her ears.
The cheers were not for Racine, America's embattled No. 1-ranked women's
bobsled driver. They were for No. 2 U.S. driver Jill Bakken and brakeman
Vonetta Flowers, the improbable and immensely popular gold medal-winning
tandem.
There was a palpable sense that a majority among the raucous Olympic
Park crowd of 15,000 regarded the result as a delicious turnabout of
fortune.
That, if such a distinction can be made, the right American team won in
light of the controversy surrounding Racine and Gea Johnson since
December.
"Well, Jill and I tried to stay out of the soap opera," said the
28-year-old Flowers, who is the first African American to earn a Winter
Olympics gold medal.
"Our goal was to come here and win a medal. We tried to stay focused. A
lot of people saw us as the other team. We had to come out and prove a
lot of people wrong."
They won in the Olympic debut of bobsled, and in doing so earned
America's first bobsled medal of any kind in 46 years. They did it
emphatically, but not just because they left Racine and the hobbled
Johnson in a distant fifth place.
It was the fact that they flat out-raced Germany's intimidating No. 1
and No. 2 teams that finished 1-2 in the 2001-2002 World Cup standings.
Bakken, 25, and Flowers stunned the field by turning in a track-record
48.81-second first heat. Then, after Germany's No. 1 team of Sandra
Prokoff and Ulrike Holzner applied pressure with a second heat run of
48.96, it came down to Bakken-Flowers and the night's final run.
All they did was blaze to a 48.95, giving them the fastest times in both
heats. Germany No. 1 finished .30 back, and Germany's No. 2 team of
Susi-Lisa Erdmann and Nicole Herschmann took bronze, .53 behind the
Americans.
"As soon as I crossed the finish line – I don't see far too well – I
couldn't tell how we finished," said Bakken, who struggled through knee
injuries last season. "When I finally saw it, I didn't know what to
feel. It was amazing."
Racine, 23, didn't seem to know what to feel, either. Widely criticized
for dumping close friend and brakeman Jen Davidson last Dec. 13, nine
days before the U.S. Trials, her decision to use Johnson obviously
backfired.
Of course, Racine could not have known that the 34-year-old Johnson
would pull her left hamstring while warming up last Saturday. Johnson
appeared after Tuesday's race on crutches.
After teaming with Johnson during the U.S. Trials to setting the Olympic
Park track record of 48.92, Racine in her worst nightmare could not have
envisioned this: During the three days before the Olympics, they managed
only three practice runs, going less than half speed on the push-offs.
"I was absolutely ill," Racine said of Johnson's injury. "I just tried
to prepare myself for anything."
Racine and Johnson had attempted to downplay the injury. But concerns
expressed privately by U.S. Bobsled officials proved well-founded.
Racine and Johnson were the third team to start in heat one, and Johnson
obviously labored during the push.
Racine and Johnson's start time of 5.54 was 13th best out of 15 teams.
It was testament to Racine's driving that the team posted the fifth-best
time (49.31) of heat one, though a distant .50 behind Bakken and Flowers.
"Basically, if you can imagine someone stabbing you with a knife and
then scraping it down your leg, going deeper and deeper with every step
you take, that's how I felt," Johnson said. "And then being on fire at
the same time."
Which begged the question: Why did she choose to compete? American
women's bobsled coach Bill Tavares acknowledged that if it was his call,
Johnson would have been replaced by an alternate, probably Bethany Hart.
But it wasn't his call, nor was it Racine's.
Under U.S. Bobsled guidelines, the only way Johnson could be replaced
was if she pulled out.
"I think if she felt she couldn't have done it ...," Racine said, then
caught herself. "I mean, I think we both placed a lot of pressure on
ourselves to get through it. Three days out from the Olympics, what do
you do?"
No one will know what would have happened had Johnson not gotten hurt.
Or, for that matter, what would have happened if Racine had not dumped
her partner of three years, Davidson.
"This night had nothing to do with Jen Davidson and I and our
friendship," Racine said. "This was about competition."
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