Carol Giesse “Bobbi” Wooledge
Competition | 1983
Carol Ann Wooledge (Bobbi Giesse) was a pioneering University of Illinois Gizz Kid who blazed a trail for many women in wheelchair sports. She was one of three women who were named to the first women’s team to represent the USA at the 1962 Stoke Mandeville Games in England after sweeping the field events at the National Wheelchair Games that year. In the 1964 Paralympic Games in Tokyo, track events were introduced to the games for women and Bobbi shined, while also competing as a member of the first Team USA women’s fencing team. In all, Bobbi garnered four gold and four bronze medals in two Paralympic competitions, the 1964 Games in Tokyo, Japan and the 1968 Games in Tel Aviv, Israel. In three Stoke-Mandeville competitions from 1962 to 1965, Bobbi earned four gold medals and six silver medals and in 1967, while competing in the first ever Pan American Games in Winnipeg, Canada, she won three golds, four silvers and one bronze.
In 1969, after seven years of competition, she felt it was time to retire and make room for younger female athletes. However, in 1970 the Chicago Sidewinders persuaded her to come out of retirement to join a powerful women’s team. At the Detroit Regional Games, Bobbi won six first places, led the women’s team to the team championship trophy and earned the individual High Point trophy. She did all of this while being four months pregnant.
Through all of the years, Bobbi never failed to display her sportsmanship by working with her younger competitors on the knowledge learned over years of competition. She served as an inspiration to other women competitors during the early years when women’s sports were still not fully developed. Bobbi always gave her best effort and fostered international sisterhood and cooperation through athletic excellence.
