Jill Bakken started competitive sports early. Initially, she did alpine skiing and was one of the best female athletes in the Northwest of the USA. She did not achieve her goal of reaching an international level in this sport and taking part in the Winter Olympics. That is why she switched to bobsleigh in 1994, which was not yet Olympic at that time. She was 16 at the beginning, making her the youngest female bobsleigh pilot to date. She trained in Calgary after the U.S. women's bobsleigh program closed in 1984.
Bakken took part in the newly created World Cup in bobsleigh since the 1994/95 season and immediately finished eighth in her first race. Her pushers at the time were Shauna Rohbock and Vonetta Flowers . She drove her best season in 1999/2000 as second in the overall World Cup ranking. The greatest success, however, was winning the gold medal with her pusher Vonetta Flowers at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City , where a bobsleigh competition for women was held for the first time. After the victory she had to sit out for two years due to injuries and then did not quite reach her previous performance. But she finished sixth at the 2005 Bobsleigh World Championships in Calgary with her push-puller Amanda Moreley . Other pushers after their comeback were Erin Pac and Bathany Hart . For the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin Bakken could not prevail against Shauna Rohbock and Jean Prahm and ended her career at the end of the season.
United States
