Can you imagine zooming down an icy track at more than 90 miles an hour? How about hurtling upside down around sharp, jutting curves before cascading from a 390-foot drop that's equivalent to tumbling from the top of a four-story building? Well, welcome to bobsledding and to the perilous and unlikely playing field where Olympian Vonetta Flowers learned to run on ice and walk by faith.

"For most of the kids, track and field gave us a glimmer of hope," she says. "Track and field became my means to another life beyond what I could experience in my community in Birmingham."

When Flowers was 9 years old, a coach named DeWitt Thomas inspired her to aim for the Olympics.

"Vonetta had more potential than any other athlete I've ever coached," says Thomas, who still coaches young black children in Birmingham. "She was the only athlete that I never found the limit of what she could achieve."

In 1992, Flowers became the first member of her family to go to college. She attended the University of Alabama-Birmingham (UAB) on a track scholarship and became its first seven-time NCAA All-American.

The UAB track standout reached the 1996 Olympic trials, but she was dogged by injuries that cost her a shot at the 100 meters and the long jump. Four years later, her renewed hope for an Olympic medal in track was short-lived; torn ankle ligaments and surgery dashed her chances at qualifying for the U.S. team.

Becoming a bobsledder
During her freshman year at UAB, Vonetta met Johnny Flowers, a preacher's kid, on the track team. They dated throughout college and were married in 1999. When Flowers decided to end her track career, her husband helped her find a new path to the Olympics.

Johnny handed her a flier announcing bobsled tryouts with these tempting words: CONTINUE YOUR OLYMPIC DREAMS. "I laughed at the idea of trying out for bobsled," Flowers says. But that "wild idea of Johnny's" led them both from Birmingham to California for tryouts.

Flowers recalls offering frantic prayers during her first try at bobsledding. "I felt like I was in a metal trashcan being thrown down a hill," she says with laughter. After all, she was strapped inside a 450-pound steel bobsled holding on for dear life, clenching her teeth, squinting her eyes, and praying frantically that "God would just let me make it down the track and let me live."

An injury sidelined Johnny, but Vonetta earned a spot as the brakeman on Bonny Warner's bobsled.

Two weeks into training, the duo broke the world start record for bobsled. But less than three months before the 2002 Olympic trials began, Warner cut Flowers from the team, hoping to find someone with more experience.

Salt Lake City, 2002

Her husband, now doubling as her coach, kept reminding her, "God has put you in this sport for a reason."

Another door soon opened for the Olympic hopeful. Two weeks after being dropped, Flowers received offers to try out again with two other bobsled drivers. She joined Jennifer Bakken's team.

"I began to realize maybe God does have me in this sport for a reason," she says. "Every time a door would close another door would open. I really began to develop a peace about it."

Flowers and Bakken made history at the Olympic Winter Games at Salt Lake City in 2002, ending a 46-year medal drought for the U.S. Olympic bobsled team. They finished first in the women's inaugural two-person race; and Flowers, the newcomer to bobsledding, became the first African American to capture a gold medal in the Olympic Winter Games.

"The biggest thing about this, to me, has been watching Vonetta grow as a person," Johnny said in an interview with their alma mater's UAB Magazine. "It's been amazing to watch this shy, reserved person take on a new role. Being able to share her story and inspire people has been a privilege for both of us."

Plunging into faith
Flowers wasn't much of a churchgoer as she grew up. Often the track was where she learned the meaning of faithfulness and obedience: "If my coach told me to run up and down the hill 12 times, I ran up and down 12 times without questioning his directions."

Today Flowers thanks God for an "overwhelming sense of calm and peace" when she competes, something she admits she didn't have when she trained as a young unchurched track star.

By the time of the Olympic Winter Games in 2002, Flowers had a new outlook on competition. She and Johnny had joined Faith Chapel Christian Center, a nondenominational church in Birmingham that they still attend, and "made a life-changing decision."

Flowers describes the experience in her 2005 autobiography, Running on Ice: "The decision meant more to me than going to church or studying the Bible on a regular basis. It meant that day in and day out, I was going to follow the heart of God and the footsteps of Jesus. My Bible became more than a book that I carried to church on Sundays."

And in it she found a familiar passage about running races and not giving up. "The race is not given to the swift or the strong, but to the one that endures to the end" is her testimony, the story behind her story that she likes to share, especially with young people. "I could have given up many times, but I chose not to give up and I was rewarded for my perseverance. I was rewarded with my heart's desire. I've learned that everyone can learn to run on ice if they first learn how to walk by faith."

A sense of priorities
In the three years since the 31-year-old Flowers made sports history, she has also won the Wilma Rudolph Athletic Olympian Award, been named one of Essence magazine's 50 most inspiring African Americans, and became the mother of twin boys. Her life has been golden. She says she owes it all to God.

Wherever she competes, Johnny and their 3-year-old twins, Jaden and Jorden, are in tow. "I won't do this sport if I can't take [my boys] with me," she says.

In February Flowers plans to defend her Olympic gold medal and race with her new partner, Jean Racine, in Torino, Italy.

Before 2002, the charming, soft-spoken woman who describes herself as reserved, couldn't have imagined being a motivational and public speaker. But she says she's finding the courage to do it. "Before I won the gold, I didn't like standing before people and talking, but since then, I've been invited to speak," Flowers says. "I feel that God has given me this gold medal to share His message. It feels natural now."

She's also remembering what her coach said after her gold-medal win. "Vonetta, God did not let you win this medal for you or for me," coach DeWitt Thomas told her. "The Lord let you win so you can look at another young girl [from the ghetto] like you and be able to encourage her."

For more information, visit www.vonettaflowers.com.

B. Denise Hawkins is a freelance writer and editor living in Fairfax, Virginia.

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