Compiled by Outside Online

December 18, 2001 Jean Racine, pilot of the well-publicized "Bobsled Girls" duo that captured 20 medals in World Cup competition over the past four years and signed lucrative commercial contracts, dumped her brakeman, Jean Davidson, one week before the start of the Olympic trials. Taking Davidson's place is Gea Johnson, a former NCAA heptathlon champion.

Racine, 24, and Davidson, 29, had been medal favorites for the upcoming Olympic debut of women's bobsled at Park City before the start of this year's season. But the two-time World Cup champions won only one medal, a bronze, at Igls, Austria, in November, according to the Los Angeles Times

The self-described "Bobsled Girls" have reaped numerous endorsements in the last year, including TV-commercial deals with Visa and NBC. The women were chosen to appear on the covers of three different kinds of Kellogg's cereal in December. They established their own Web site, www.bobsledgirls.com, though a message on the current homepage says the site is now "under construction."

Racine told the Associated Press this past weekend that the decision was based on poor push-start times that she and Davidson had been experiencing this year.

"Jen and I struggled at the start all season," Racine was quoted as saying. "She being my best friend, we were wanting to make this work ... but the start just wasn't coming together. It just came to a head where I needed to make some changes now or I knew I wasn't going to."

Davidson told news reporters that she was shocked by the move.

"I was caught completely off guard. This is not the way I consider friends treat each other," the Times quoted her as saying.

Johnson, who had been riding the brake for Bonny Warner, has earned some of her own publicity in the past. She has posed nude for a fitness magazine and was suspended from international competition for four years for using anabolic steroids, according to the Times.

Bob Williams, of Burns Celebrity Sports Service, told the Times that the nude photo would make it almost impossible for the newly formed team to garner the types of commercial contracts Racine and Davidson, even if they win a medal

"I can hear the pitter patter of advertiser's feet running away," he said.