STAFF MEDIA PICK: Driving Forces: Inside the First US Women’s Olympic Bobsled Team by Tammy Wark Marcoullier
April 2024
Despite working at the Lake Placid Olympic Museum, I didn’t know much about the first women’s Olympic bobsled team. When I came across Driving Forces, I knew I wanted to read it. This story follows the formation of the first-ever Women’s Olympic Bobsled Team, and the two sliders who became the first American bobsledders to win gold in 46 years.
Jill Bakken and Vonetta Flowers made history at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympic Games by becoming the first female bobsledders to win a gold Olympic medal. Vonetta Flowers also made history at this event, becoming the first Black person–from any country–to win a gold medal at the Winter Olympics.
The author does an excellent job of setting up the reader to understand the significance of this event. From the start, the reader learns foundational knowledge about bobsledding as a sport. We hear about what it’s like to be hurtling down the track and the months of training behind a race lasting mere minutes. However, what intrigued me was the history behind women in sliding sports. Following Katherine Dewey’s success in the 1940 AAU senior championship against men, an anonymous protester spurred a voting decision banning women from competition. That legacy lasted nearly six decades. Juxtaposed with this history, the people who worked to bring women back into bobsledding are remarkably determined.
What stands out about this book is the attention it gives to the many different women who made this gold medal possible, not just those who won it. It focuses more on the prejudice against women in sliding sports, and less on the racial barriers that existed for Vonetta Flowers in particular. We begin with the sixteen women who came to the first trials in Lake Placid to form the first US Women’s National Team and end with the two women who made history. Reading about the dedication of each athlete who dedicated their time to this effort is incredible. It took collaboration, perseverance, and tremendous personal sacrifice to send female competitors to the 2002 Winter Olympics. A few of the women were also mothers–members of the initial 8-person national team were pregnant, training with young children, and later Vonetta Flowers won her historic gold while pregnant. This story gives an inside look at the personal qualities and the community necessary to become an Olympian, though it does not shy away from the hard truth that sometimes you must just be in the right place at the right time. The tragedy of injuries and outside issues changed the key players at each stage.
I particularly enjoyed learning how Vonetta Flowers became a bobsledder through track and field. She had been ready to give up on representing her country after being unsuccessful at the Olympic trials for track and field. Ultimately, her Olympic dream became reality, though not in the way she initially expected.
Readers who enjoy learning more about the behind-the-scenes of what goes into making an Olympic team or what is involved in bringing a new sport to the Olympics will be intrigued by this story. This is an inspiring sports tale, and is especially poignant for any woman who has been told that she cannot achieve her goals or that her accomplishments matter less because of her gender.
Written by Bridey Ryan