OCALA, Fla. (WFLA) – For the final time, Debbie Bowe will be packing her signature winter gloves, blue with red and white pom-poms at the end of each finger, to support her daughter, long track speed skater Brittany Bowe, at the Olympics.
Bowe said her goddaughter was not able to travel due to leukemia, so she and her mother made the gloves for her.
“These gloves make every single trip with me and people around the world look for my gloves,” Debbie Bowe explained to WFLA. “They are my signature look. I will tell you, one time I forgot them in Germany in the lobby of a hotel, and before I got to the Netherlands, to my hotel, these gloves were in the hotel in the Netherlands. Everybody knows my gloves.”
While reflecting on her daughter’s Olympic journey, Bowe said it was clear from a very young age that Brittany was a gifted athlete.
A caregiver at a child care center even told Bowe her 2-year old daughter would be an Olympian someday.
It was also clear that she would not become a baton twirler like her mother.
“When I saw her out in the front yard beating the bushes with the baton, I did say to her dad, ‘I don’t think she’s cut out for the sequins and the pink bows,’” Debbie Bowe reflected.
Instead, Brittany Bowe was exposed to inline skating when she was 8 years old and eventually started speed skating.
She had a love for sports, a need for speed, and a mother who supported her every step of the way.
The two-time Olympic bronze medalist says she is retiring after the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics.
“In my entire time as an Olympian’s mother, I’ve never hoped for Brittany to win. Anybody that knows me knows that I am thoughtful and prayerful that she has her personal best, that she’s safe and that she has good sportsmanship,” said Debbie Bowe.
This fall, we asked Brittany Bowe: who is your hero?
“My mom has always been my hero,” she replied. “She’s my rock, my role model. She’s a rock star.”
“So that’s really, really nice,” said Debbie Bowe after watching the clip. “Brittany and Brooke, Brittany’s younger sister, they know that my life has been full and rich but there’s nothing more important to me as a mother, as a person, as a woman than being the mother of Brittany and Brooke.”
Bowe said her love for her daughter comes from the person she is, not the races she’s won.
“It’s not because she’s an Olympic medalist. She’s just a nice young lady and loves people and knows to look out for other people,” said Debbie Bowe, who is now a guidance counselor at the high school where Brittany graduated from and played basketball, Trinity Catholic High School in Ocala, Florida.
An award at the school was named in her honor, the Brittany Bowe Character in Athletics Award, after she relinquished her spot in the 500m race at the 2022 Olympic Trials to give her friend and teammate Erin Jackson a chance to compete.
Jackson went on to win gold at the Olympics, the first Black woman to become a champion in an individual event at the Winter Olympics.
“Just one of those mother moments. Like this is equal or as great or better than a gold medal hung around your neck at the Olympics,” said Debbie Bowe while looking at the Brittany Bowe Character in Athletics Award.
Like her daughter, Debbie Bowe said she will savor this last Olympics before Brittany retires.
She will be going to the opening ceremony for the first time and catching other Olympic events outside of speed skating.
Just look for those gloves.