Diesel power
Young Edmonton bobsledder Dawn Richardson Wilson determined to follow in footsteps of local legend
It would be difficult to find a much better sports story anywhere on the planet right now than Edmonton’s 19-year-old soccer superstar Alphonso Davies of Bayern Munich, just voted the ninth best player in Europe.
But one can look. Maybe Dawn Richardson Wilson isn’t “a followup Phonzie,” but she is certainly worth introducing.
Wilson is becoming a whale of a story at age 20. And all the right people are trying to convince me she has a very real chance to realize greatness, as well.
Wilson doesn’t play soccer. She’s not trying to become another Davies. She’s a bobsledder. She wants to be another Pierre Lueders, the legend who came out of Edmonton and won Olympic gold and silver and two world championships.
Both Davies’ and Wilson’s stories begin in Ghana.
Davies and his parents left at an early age to move to a Liberian refugee camp. After a handful of years there, the family ended up in Edmonton.
Wilson was also born in Ghana but she moved to Edmonton at the age of two. Both her parents died when she was six.
“I really didn’t get to know them much,” she said of mom Debra and dad Nathaniel.
“I came over here with my mom and my three older siblings,” she said of Emad, Bridgette and Arnell.
“I’m not entirely sure about my dad’s death. He didn’t come to Canada with us and he died in Ghana shortly after my mom died here. I think my mom’s death had something to do with her heart. I was so young they didn’t tell me much.”
Wilson ended up being raised by her brother Emad’s ex-wife.
“I call her my mom,” she said of Cecillia. “They ended up getting divorced but I felt more of a connection with his wife, my mom. I can’t explain it. It just felt right.
"She just took me under her wing and helped me become who I am today,” said the athlete who, during the week, works with a family of an autistic child where she does physiotherapy, nutrition, schooling and general care.
With that kind of a start, how does Wilson end up in a bobsled, much less with people projecting her to make a name in the sport?
“She is the toughest athlete they have ever seen — tougher than any man in the program,” said Jamie McCartney,
Bobsleigh Canada physical performance director. “She’s gritty. I have witnessed a quiet, reserved young woman go to great lengths to even make the national team as a teenager in a sport filled with grown women. With crashes, she has faced more tough days on the ice in her first two years than one would normally be subjected to in an entire career. But she repeatedly continues taking the lumps that only a select few would face more than once. She keeps coming back and is showing the world that she has the ability to do so at a world level.”
They’ve already given her a nickname — Diesel.
“Talented kids come along but Dawn is undoubtedly special,” McCartney said. “You hear people talk about the ‘it’ factor and Dawn has it. But it’s her toughness and her grit that make her stand out. She has a never-ending resolve that sets her apart.”
Two-time world championship medallist driver Christine de Bruin marvels at the kid she had the pleasure of piloting during her first World Cup race in Lake Placid, N.Y., before the season was called off.
“We don’t usually get athletes this young. Usually people will start after university so their careers tend to be a little more short-lived. Dawn has the advantage of starting so young. Because of that, she can learn the techniques for longer, get stronger longer and become the model of a bobsleigh athlete. All of this helps her to become one of the best in the world.”
Bobsleigh Canada high performance director Chris Le Bihan said Wilson has already identified herself.
“Dawn’s work ethic and professionalism represent exactly what we are building for Canada’s Olympic bobsleigh program. She is relentless in her commitment to excellence and is the ultimate teammate. I am confident her drive will lead her to great places on and off the track," he said. “I have no doubt Dawn has the potential to reach the highest level of international competition and her journey is one that I don’t want to miss unfold.”
It’s hard to believe she was a quiet, shy, even nervous girl until she discovered sports at Ross Sheppard High School.
It was her basketball coach, Dean Walls, who put her in touch with Bobsleigh Canada.
The plan is to eventually become a driver, and the brakeman who was in the back of the sled for two top10 World Cup runs, the one in Lake Placid and one in Austria before the season was scrapped because of the COVID-19 pandemic, has already attended her first driving school.
Only Wilson would pilot a bobsled down an Olympic run and then catch a bus back to Edmonton.