Three Nigerian-American bobsledders are sliding into Olympic history
What am I doing? Seun Adigun wondered in 2015 at the top of a bobsled run in Lake Placid, New York. The former track star crouched behind her driver, gripping the push bars, ready to sprint 50 meters, leap into the bob, and hurtle down 1,130 meters of bumpy ice for her first ride. The sled shook, rattled, and lurched; it felt more like being inside a washing machine than on a roller coaster. The whole experience made Adigun dizzy. There is NO WAY I am getting back in the sled, she thought. Then she uncoiled herself, rode to the top of the track, and did it again.
Conquering outlandish-seeming ideas is nothing new for Adigun, 31, the daughter of Nigerian immigrants, who was born in Chicago and raised in Evanston, Illinois. Audacity is a good trait in an athlete with her eye on a gold medal. After just one season of bobsled competition, Adigun became a driver, recruited two fellow Nigerian-Americans to serve as brakewomen, and began training for the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. The women will be the first athletes (male or female) to represent Nigeria in any sport in the Winter Olympics and the first to compete in bobsled from the entire continent of Africa. “This is a very special moment,” Adigun says. “It’s the beginning of a new era in winter sports—for Nigerians and for Africa as a whole.”
This story is from the March 2018 edition of Marie Claire - US.
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This story is from the March 2018 edition of Marie Claire - US.
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