Personal information | |
---|---|
Nickname(s) | Tal ![]() |
Born | 22 June 1962 ![]() Cockburn Town ![]() |
Height | 183 cm (6 ft 0 in) |
Weight | 89 kg (196 lb) |
Website | www![]() |
Sport | |
Sport | bobsleigh ![]() |
Discipline | 2-man bob, 4-man bob ![]() |
Dudley Clifford "Tal" Stokes [1] (born 22 June 1962) is a Jamaican bobsledder [2] and bobsled coach. [3] He competed at the 1988, 1992, 1994 and the 1998 Winter Olympics. [4]
In 1993, Disney produced a successful feature film called Cool Runnings about the 1988 Olympics, which was a fictional story about the first time a Jamaican bobsleigh team competed in the Olympics.
Together with his pusher Michael White, Stokes competed in the olympic two-man bobsleigh in Calgary 1988 and finished 30th out of a total of 41st. Thus, they were the first two Jamaicans in history to compete in the Winter Olympics.
As original four-man teammate Caswell Allen was injured during training shortly before the competition, he was replaced on the four-man bobsleigh team by Dudley Stokes' brother Chris Stokes. [5] Chris was a very good sprinter but had never been in a bobsleigh before. The team finished 24th out of 26 after the first heat. However, after a fall in the last of the four runs, the race was over for the four, who had won many sympathies.
At the 1992 Winter Olympics, two Jamaican teams competed in the two-man bobsleigh race for the first time: this time Stokes started in the two-man bobsleigh with his brother and finished 36th behind the "Jamaica 2" bobsleigh of Devon Harris and Richard McIntosh. In the four-man bobsleigh race, the team finished 25th out of 31.
Two years later at the Winter Games in Lillehammer 1994, he competed with Wayne Thomas in the two-man bobsleigh race, but was disqualified due to a crash. In the four-man bobsleigh race, however, things went better. Together with his brother, Wayne Thomas and Winston Watts, the crew finished 14th out of 30 participating bobsleigh teams.
His last Olympic appearance came four years later at the 1998 Nagano Games: this time, Stokes only competed in the four-man bobsleigh race and finished 21st.
After his career ended, Stokes was president of the Jamaican Bobsleigh Federation for four years.
Pierre Fritz Lueders is a Canadian Olympic, world and World Cup champion bobsledder who competed from 1990 to 2010. He piloted both two-man and four-man bobsleigh, retiring after the 2010 Winter Olympics. He was named to Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 2012.
Bobsleigh at the 1988 Winter Olympics consisted of two events, at Canada Olympic Park. The competition took place between February 20 and February 28, 1988.
Cool Runnings is a 1993 American sports comedy film directed by Jon Turteltaub from a screenplay by Lynn Siefert, Tommy Swerdlow, and Michael Goldberg, and a story by Siefert and Michael Ritchie. It is loosely based on the debut of the Jamaican national bobsleigh team at the 1988 Winter Olympics, and stars John Candy, Leon Robinson, Doug E. Doug, Rawle D. Lewis, and Malik Yoba. In the film, former Olympian Irving Blitzer (Candy) coaches a novice four-man bobsleigh team from Jamaica, led by sprinter Derice Bannock (Robinson).
Sandra Kiriasis is a German former bobsledder who has competed from 2000 to 2014.
Shauna Linn Rohbock is a retired Olympic medal-winning bobsledder, former professional soccer player, and is a staff sergeant in the Utah Army National Guard. After retiring from competitions she worked as a bobsled coach at the Utah Olympic Park.
Several tropical nations have participated in the Winter Olympics despite not having the climate for winter sports. Partly because of that, their entries are a subject of human interest stories during the Games. No tropical nation has ever won a Winter Olympic medal.
Some countries hoped to compete in the 2006 Winter Olympics but did not do so.
Steven Paul Holcomb was an American bobsledder who competed from 1998 until his death in 2017. At the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, he won the four-man bobsled event for the United States, its first gold medal in that event since 1948. At the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, he finished second in both the four-man and two-man event.
Jesse Lumsden is a Canadian Olympic bobsledder and a retired Canadian football player, who played for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, Edmonton Eskimos and Calgary Stampeders.
Jamaica competed in the Winter Olympic Games for the first time at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. They competed in one sport, Bobsledding, in both the two-man and four-man events and finished outside the medal places in both competitions. Athletes were recruited from the Jamaica Defence Force, which saw Dudley Stokes, Devon Harris, and Michael White become the first members of the team. Caswell Allen was the fourth man, but was injured prior to the start of the Olympics and was replaced by Chris Stokes, who was only in Canada to support his brother and new teammate Dudley.
The Jamaica national bobsleigh team represents Jamaica in international bobsleighing competitions. The men's team debut in the 1988 Winter Olympic Games four-man bobsleigh in Calgary, Alberta, was received as underdogs in a cold weather sport represented by a nation with a tropical environment. Jamaica returned to the Winter Olympics in the two-man bobsleigh in 1992, 1994, 1998, 2002, 2014, and 2022; a women's team debuted in 2018.
Howard Banford Siler Jr. was an American bobsledder who competed from the late 1960s to the early 1980s.
The Canada Olympic Park bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton track is a bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton track located in Calgary, Alberta. Part of Canada Olympic Park, it hosted the bobsleigh and luge competitions at the 1988 Winter Olympics. This track is one of only two of its type in the world to be featured in a non-documentary film when it was part of the 1993 American film Cool Runnings which loosely followed the Jamaican Bobsled Team during their competition in bobsleigh at the 1988 Games.
Kaillie Humphries is a Canadian and American bobsledder. Representing Canada, she was the 2010 and 2014 Olympic champion in the two-woman bobsled and the 2018 Olympic bronze medalist with brakewoman Phylicia George. With her victory in 2014, she became the first female bobsledder to defend her Olympic title and was named flagbearer for the Olympic closing ceremony with brakewoman Heather Moyse.
Christopher Fogt is a United States Army Major, three time USA Olympian, and Olympic Silver medalist. He won a Silver Medal at the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi as a member of the famed Team Night Train, in the four-man event. He also competed in the two-man Bobsled event in Sochi, earning 12th place with pilot, Cory Butner. He competed in the 2010 Vancouver Games as a member of USA-2, in the four-man event with pilot John Napier. After taking three years off after the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, he returned to the Sport in 2017 with long time friend and teammate Steve Langton earning a spot on his third USA Winter Olympic Team to compete in PyeongChang, 2018. He competed in PyeongChang with pilot Justin Olsen in the four-man event.
Nelson Christian "Chris" Stokes has been an active member of the Jamaican Bobsleigh Team since its inception in 1988.
Winston Alexander Watts is a member of the Jamaica national bobsleigh team. He has competed in four Olympics, most recently the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
Jamaica competed at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia from 7 to 23 February 2014. The team consisted of a two-man bobsled, marking the return of the Jamaican Bobsled Team to the Winter Olympics after a twelve-year hiatus.
Alysia Rissling is a Canadian bobsledder. In 2015, she was the pilot for the first all-woman team in an official four-man bobsleigh race after the event became gender neutral. She competed in the two-woman bobsleigh event for Canada at the 2018 Winter Olympics with Heather Moyse; the pair finished in 6th place.
Jamaica competed at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China, from 4 to 20 February 2022.