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Racine, Bakken race to Olympic berths
Veteran sliders will represent U.S. in February
By Joe Bauman
Deseret News staff writer
BEAR HOLLOW — Smiles of victory and tears of defeat marked the women's Olympic bobsled team selection races here Saturday evening.
When the last spray of shaved ice had showered from the bobsled, skeleton and luge track, Jean Racine of Waterford, Mich., and her new brakeman, Gea Johnson (Phoenix) were obvious winners. On the first run of the day, they set a new record at the Utah Olympic Park track: 48.92 seconds, hitting 83.1 miles per hour.
The other team to go to the Salt Lake 2002 Winter Games will be driver Jill Bakken (Park City) and brakeman Vonetta Flowers (Birmingham, Ala.). They were chosen in two days of competition, one race per day.
When asked how it feels to be an Olympian, Racine laughed and said, "I feel great! It's unbelievable. I'm going to have to let this sink in for a little while."
When they set the record Friday, "everything just flowed," Racine said. "You can tell when you [hit] that line and you're just, you know, continuing it all the way down the run.
"And it's a wonderful feeling . . . You almost feel like you're floating instead of sliding on ice."
The second run by Racine and Johnson was clocked at 49:25. Racine noted that she wasn't where she wanted to be on the third corner, "but I got back on track and the rest of the run was beautiful. So I'm really pleased with my driving."
She was especially happy to set the track record. "I really, really needed that going into the Olympics. I'm feeling pretty confident."
Reviewing slow-motion videos of their starts, Racine was delighted to find that they were closely coordinated. "Our legs are actually almost completely in sync, our hips've been in sync," she said.
Considering how little time they had "to put it together," she said, "I've been really pleased with our results."
For women bobsledders, the choice of Olympians was based on results in two races, held on Friday and Saturday. Since the teams had the same rankings in Friday's races, they are America's choices for the first women ever to compete for Olympic gold in bobsled.
Bonny Warner, an airline pilot from Discovery Bay, Calif., who had been tied with Racine for third during World Cup races this season, took third place.
Only two women's bobsled teams will compete here in February, so that finish was not good enough for Warner and her brakeman, Bethany Hart (North Grafton, Mass.)
Recently, Racine dumped her long-time brakeman, Jen Davidson (Layton). Johnson, who had worked with Warner, joined Racine. Flowers also was a brakeman for Warner earlier.
Warner said this is probably the end of her career as a bobsled competitor. At 39, she reviewed her many accomplishments as a bobsled pilot, a luge athlete and a promoter of women athletes competing in Olympic bobsled.
When a reporter asked if she someday would replay, mentally, the last week and a half, Warner wept. "You know, the nice thing is I have a beautiful daughter, and a nice husband, and a good job to go back to. And so, someday it just would be nice if the people that I brought to the sport realize what I did to them, and people in the sport realize what I did for them. Because I think we, the United States, have a very good shot at medals, both gold and silver, and I just hope they do it for me, even though I won't be there."
Her husband, Tony Simi, stood massaging her shoulders as Warner faced reporters at the takeout dock.
"I'm a mature woman, and I know that perhaps my role in all of this was to make dreams happen for someone else, so that's what I've done," she said. "I just hope they go win."
Would she try for the following Olympics? "Well, I'm 39 years old. My husband here would probably divorce me if I kept going," she said, managing a laugh.
"You know, what can I say? Up until a week and a half ago, I was an Olympic medal contender and now I'm not. Somebody had to be sacrificed to the program. I guess it was me."
Racine and Bakken's teams have a shot at medals, she said. When they compete, "a piece of me will be there, in some ways."
Johnson commented on Warner's role: "She definitely paved the way for me to have an opportunity in Europe, and I will always be thankful for that . . . I'll always appreciate her generosity and everything she taught me."
For men's two-man and four-man bobsled, the team headed by Todd Hays (Del Rio, Texas) already had a spot because they led World Cup standings.
The battle over the other seat apparently is boiling down to four-time Olympian Brian Shimer (Naples, Fla.) and Mike Dionne (Marietta, Ga.). But still in the running is Joe McDonald of Kingston, N.Y.
The second team will be determined at races next weekend at the Utah Olympic Park.
Shimer and Dionne "will have a tremendous dogfight, I'm sure, down to the very next run next Saturday," said Dave Juehring, team leader for bobsled programs for the U.S. Bobsled and Skeleton Federation.
E-mail: bau@desnews.com
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December 23, 2001
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