On February 19th, 2002 Vonetta Flowers won the first Black gold medal in Winter Olympic Games' history. Vonetta Flowers was a star sprinter and long jumper at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and originally aspired to make the U.S. Summer Olympic Team. After several failed attempts, Flowers turned to bobsledding, and found success as a brakewoman almost immediately. At the 2002 Winter Olympics, she, along with driver Jill Bakken, won the gold medal in the two-woman event, becoming the first black person to win a gold medal in the Winter Olympics. In December 2010, she was elected to the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame.

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