Richardson Wilson excels for Canada
Life had thrown some wicked curves at her long before Dawn Richardson Wilson stood at the top of Calgary’s bobsled track for the first time, a nervous teenage brakeman wondering what on Earth she was doing there.
The father she knew only from pictures stayed in Ghana when two-year-old Richardson Wilson emigrated to Canada with her mother Debra. Four years later, her mother died in their Edmonton home. She remembers only the sound of her mother falling.
“I don’t have a lot of memories of her. I feel that’s the brain’s way of protecting a person, because there are some things that I remember so well, and others I can’t recall what happened.”
She was raised by her brother Emad and sister-in-law Cecilia.
“They took me in, adopted me when nobody else was able to because my sisters were too young. They raised me as their own. It was kind of difficult, just because it’s almost like getting a new lifestyle in the blink of an eye and having to adapt to a new person, calling this new person mom. It definitely wasn’t a normal upbringing, just because I felt very isolated. It was very difficult trying to find my place.”
She found it in sports — basketball, rugby and ultimate Frisbee — and at school, where she was a dedicated student.
And she has found it on the Bobsleigh Canada development squad. High-performance director Chris Le Bihan was instantly impressed with her testing scores from a recruitment camp, and again when the muscular, five-foot-eight, 140-pounder showed up for training with the team.
“You watch how people move, how they run, how they throw things and lift weights, and you can immediately tell someone who has potential. She was 18, running fast. We were literally blown away,” he said. “She comes into this program with all these bobsledding maniacs, big developed adults doing a pretty crazy sport, and she can do it. She just comes into the program. And forget about the athletic side, she fit in. She wasn’t afraid and she keeps going.”
Richardson Wilson is 20 now and about to race on the World
Cup bobsled circuit for the first time this week in Lake Placid, N.Y. She won a push-off contest last week in Calgary and comes into Christine De Bruin’s sled as a temporary replacement for brakeman Kristen Bujnowski, who is out with a calf injury.
“She has really good wheels on her, so I know that we’ll push well,” said De Bruin, who asks a brakeman for three things. “For me as a driver at this level, I just need the confidence and the chill and the good push. I think she is able to give me all three. She’s proving she’s got the physical ability and she just has to give ’er now.”
Last year, Richardson Wilson and pilot Kori Hol gave ’er on the North American circuit, winning the overall title. It was the payoff for the unique level of commitment and travel necessary.
Richardson Wilson was alternately living in Edmonton with her sister Bridget and in Calgary with her cousin Maui, commuting between cities on the Red Arrow. She spent 90 minutes each way on a Calgary city bus to get from Maui’s home to Canada Olympic Park for training.
“I do it because I love the sport, even as crazy and terrifying as it is,” she said.
In Edmonton, she’s been pursuing a sociology degree with a criminology stream and psychology minor, her eyes on a potential career in the RCMP.
She manages to handle all of it, in part because she had to grow up quickly, and because she now feels supported in all of her endeavours by family, friends and a host of teammates.
“Going into bobsled, it isn’t about whether or not I make it to the Olympics. It’s just about having a safe community. I feel safe and open to talk and just hang out and be myself and improve as a person. Sports is everything I live for in my life. It has basically created my name and who I am as a person.”
She’s a good student, a good teammate, and a good person. Though growing up without parents was unsettling and confusing, she’s stronger today because of that experience.
Two years ago, she and Bridget bought a tombstone for Debra’s gravesite in the Northern Lights Cemetery.
“There had never been one and I don’t know why,” said Dawn. “My sister and I got the money together and came up with the design. I couldn’t give my mother anything (else). This was my gift to her.”