FACTOIDS
Full Name: Valerie Fleming
Nickname: Val
Birthday: December 18, 1976
Height: 5’8”
Hometown: San Francisco, California
Sports: Bobsled
PROFILE
* Set five start records during the 2005 season, including at the track in Torino
* “I’m very competitive myself,” said Fleming in her “My Story” film talking about Rohbock and herself. “We can’t play games together anymore because I continue to beat her and then she crys about it.”
* Believed her career in sports was finished after her injuries, Fleming was encouraged by a former track & field teammate to try bobsledding and took her first run with Jean Racine … feeling sick, Fleming wondered what she’d gotten herself into
* “We are the best of friends,” teammate Shauna Rohbock said about her roommate in Fleming’s “My Story” film. “We spend all our time together. We live together. We train together.”
* Broke the school record in the 400m relay at the University of California Santa Barbara and was the Big West champion in women’s javelin – dreamed of becoming an Olympian in the javelin but was sidelined due to an elbow injury''
* “She always said, `I'm going to the Olympics if I have to walk,' '' said her mother, Lenore Turkovich, to Mecury News. ``If it wasn't this, it was going to be kayaking.''
* Credits her step-dad as the one who instilled in her the dedication to sports
* Growing up Fleming preferred to play baseball or football with the neighborhood boys than Barbies with her faternal twin sister
* Has a master’s degree in health, physical education and recreation
* Works at The Home Depot in Park City, Utah in the garden department
