Lewisham’s Montell Douglas looking to leave legacy when she makes history at Winter Olympics

BY RACHEL STEINBERG

Montell Douglas couldn’t stop thinking about what her friend said: “There are black women watching you.”

The bobsleigh athlete, 36, will make history in Beijing. She will become the first British woman in 98 years to have competed in both a Summer and Winter Olympics – and the only one to do it with two sports.

The number of GB’s LGBTQ+ athletes has more than doubled since Pyeongchang 2018, from 15 to an estimated 34.

Beijing will also boast the smallest event gender gap of any Winter Games, with women’s events accounting for 47.25 per cent of the programme.

But the competition remains overwhelmingly white—especially outside bobsleigh.

“[My friend] reminded me a lot along the way of why I was doing what I was doing,” said Lewisham-born Douglas, who will be the brakewoman for returning pilot Mica McNeill – the pair’s first training heats begin on February 15.

“We want exposure. It’s important. Representation matters, I’ve said it a million times. If you can see it, you can achieve it.

“And I’m hoping now people will see me and go: ‘Oh, gosh, the first British woman wasn’t just a British woman’. But the black community will also go: ‘That’s a black person that we can relate to’, especially when they just see winter sport as a white-dominated world.”

A 2017 University of Toronto report revealed that 94.9 per cent of the athletes across a combination of the British, Canadian, Australian and American teams at the Sochi Games were white.

It took 64 years of Winter Games history before a black athlete, Team USA figure skater Debi Thomas, medalled at a Winter Games at Calgary 1988. Almost two decades later, at Turin 2006, speed skater Shani Davis became the first black Winter Olympic champion.

Douglas made her debut for Team GB as a 100m sprinter in 2008 – the last time Beijing hosted a Games. She joined British Bobsleigh in 2016 and travelled to Pyeongchang as a reserve.

“Diversity, for me, always just adds to that value,” said Douglas, who also serves as an athlete mentor for the Youth Sport Trust.

“In life, all you want to do is add value to anyone, in any scope of life.

“That’s what bringing different kinds of people within a sport does. It strengthens the pool of athletes you have, you just open up the doors for bigger and better performances and to move the sport along.

“If everything always looks the same for many, many years it can get a bit stalemate.

“You want to give the athletes a bit of a boost and bring some different characters in.

“Obviously Britain are not a winter sport nation. But at the last Games there were many athletes of colour, especially in British bobsleigh, and you just want to kind of continue that legacy.”

Douglas knows that finances and access can play a huge factor in determining who participates in winter sport – more of a challenge than, say, track and field.

Some British governing bodies have tried to come up with creative solutions. GB Snowsport’s Project Balance was set up last year to increase urban participation in skateboarding.

Despite the difficulties, Douglas urged any young athlete she will inevitably inspire not to feel discouraged.

She added: “What’s happening now is that we’re giving people hope, and the aspiration that it could be possible, and now saying it’s been done, it can be done, how can we push the sport on further?

“Because actually as a non-winter sport nation we do pretty well and I think that could look very, very different in the next four to eight years.”