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, [1] 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. [2]
The debut team, consisting of Devon Harris, Dudley Stokes, Michael White, Freddy Powell, and last minute replacement Chris Stokes, qualified at the 1988 Winter Olympic Games in Calgary, Alberta. Their coach was Howard Siler, an Olympic bobsledder for the United States in 1972 and 1980. [3] Their "underdog" status as an unlikely competitor in a cold weather sport represented by a nation with a tropical environment quickly gained them popularity at the Games. They had little experience in the sport and had to appeal to other teams for basic equipment in order to compete; sporting camaraderie across national boundaries followed. In the third out of four runs, they lost control of the sleigh, crashed, and did not officially finish. [4] Dudley Stokes and Michael White entered the two-man bobsleigh event, finishing 30th out of 41 teams. [5]
The team returned to the Olympics at the 1992 Winter Olympic Games in Albertville, France, and finished 25th. [6] [7] They qualified for the 1994 Winter Olympic Games in Lillehammer, Norway. Critics were stunned when they finished in 14th place, ahead of the United States, Russia, Australia, and France. [8]
At the 2000 World Push in Monaco, the team won the gold medal. [9]
At the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, the 2-man team of Winston Watts (pilot) and Lascelles Brown (brakeman) set the Park City bobsled track record and the Olympic record for the push-start segment of the 2-man race at 4.78 seconds. Jamaica failed to qualify for the 2006 Winter Olympic Games in Turin, Italy, and the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, Canada. The two-man bobsled team qualified for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia. [2]
Jamaica competed in women's bobsleigh, with a crew of two coached by Norwegian Trond Knaplund, consisting of pilot Porscha Morgan and Wynsome Cole on brakes, winning World Push titles in 2000 and 2001. They achieved the fastest push times in all runs, resulting in a landslide victory. These women initiated the Jamaican women bobsleigh team/program and were seen as contenders in the sport. The programme suffered a setback because of lack of funding, and brakeman Wynsome Cole suffered injuries due to a crash, resulting in the team having to withdraw from a few of the competitions.[ citation needed ]
The team returned to competition at the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, with KayMarie Jones and Salcia Slack competing in a North American Cup race in November 2014, ending an over 10 year absence of a Jamaican female crew in international competition. [10] One of the athletes on the revived team was NaTalia Stokes, daughter and niece of former Jamaican bobsledders Chris and Dudley Stokes. [11]
Jamaica qualified for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, lacked funding, but within two days the cryptocurrency Dogecoin community raised on the team's behalf $30,000 of the approximately $40,000. [12] [13] An online campaign was set up, seeking to raise an additional $80,000 through the crowdfunding platform Tilt. [14] The campaign closed on 22 January 2014, and surpassed the target goal having collected $129,687. [15]
Following the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, Todd Hays, former Olympic medalist and former coach of the Dutch and United States bobsleigh teams, was appointed head coach and technical director of the Jamaican team. [10] However, he had to leave his role after one season due to a lack of funds to pay his salary, although he continued to work with the team in an unofficial capacity. [16] Ahead of the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, the Jamaican Bobsleigh Federation invested significantly in the team, buying a new sled for the women's crew of Jazmine Fenlator-Victorian and Carrie Russell, and filling a number of coaching positions, with former British, Dutch and Brazilian coach Jo Manning becoming High-Performance Director, former Olympic and World Champion Sandra Kiriasis joining as driving coach and Dudley Stokes being appointed as coach responsible for performance, mental preparation and general logistics. [17] In January 2018, the Jamaica women's team qualified for the 2018 Winter Olympic Games. [18] However the men's team missed out on Olympic qualification by one position in the world rankings. [19] Days ahead of the start of bobsleigh training at the Games, Kiriasis parted ways with the Jamaica Bobsleigh Federation after she was told she would be demoted from her position as driver coach to the role of track and performance analyst. [20] [21] On 21 February, Fenlator-Victorian and Russell finished 19th in the two-woman Olympic bobsleigh event.
The current team:
| Position | Teammate |
|---|---|
| Pilot/Brakeman | Nimroy Turgott [22] |
| Driver | Shanwayne Stephens [23] |
| Brakeman | Wayne McPherson [24] |
| Brakewoman | Audra Segree [25] |
| Brakeman | Ashley Watson [26] |
| Brakeman | Matthew Wekpe [27] |
| Pilot/Brakeman | Rolando Reid [28] |
| Brakewoman | Shadae Green [29] |
| Pilot/Brakewoman | Carrie Russell [30] |
| Pilot | Jazmine Fenlator-Victorian [31] |
| Position | Teammate |
|---|---|
| Driver | Jordan Borella |
| Brakewoman | Carrie Russell |
| Skeleton Rider | Anthony Watson |
| Olympics | Athletes | Ranking |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | Jazmine Fenlator-Victorian | 19 |
| Olympics | Athletes | Ranking |
|---|---|---|
| 1988 | Dudley Stokes Michael White | 30 |
| 1992 | Devon Harris Ricky McIntosh | 35 |
| Dudley Stokes Chris Stokes | 36 | |
| 1994 | Dudley Stokes Wayne Thomas | DQ |
| 1998 | Devon Harris Michael Morgan | 29 |
| 2002 | Winston Watts Lascelles Brown | 28 |
| 2014 | Winston Watts Marvin Dixon | 27 |
| 2022 | Shanwayne Stephens Nimroy Turgott | 30 |
| Olympics | Athletes | Ranking |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Jazmine Fenlator-Victorian Carrie Russell | 19 |
| Olympics | Athletes | Ranking | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1988 | Dudley Stokes Devon Harris Michael White Chris Stokes | DNF [32] [33] | |
| 1992 | Dudley Stokes Ricky McIntosh Michael White Chris Stokes | 25 [34] | |
| 1994 | Dudley Stokes Winston Watts Chris Stokes Wayne Thomas | 14 [35] | |
| 1998 | Dudley Stokes Winston Watts Chris Stokes Wayne Thomas | 21 | 2:43.76 [36] |
| 2022 | Shanwayne Stephens Rolando Reid Ashley Watson Matthew Wekpe [37] | 28 | 3:03:42 |
The 1988 team inspired the reggae parody song "Jamaican Bobsled" by The Rock 'n' Roll Animals, played on the GTR radio station and later released on the CD Yatta, Yatta, Yatta. [38] The song was recorded after Jamaica had announced that they would be entering a bobsledding team into the Olympics, but before the Olympics had actually started; nevertheless, the lyrics accurately predict that the team would crash during one of their runs.
In 1993, Disney released Cool Runnings , a film loosely based on and inspired by the team's experience in the four-man Bobsleigh at the 1988 Winter Olympics event.
The 1988 four-man team were referenced in the 1999 Futurama episode "Xmas Story."
The 2014 team was the inspiration for "The Bobsled Song" written by Sidney Mills from Steel Pulse, Jon Notar, and Groove Guild. The music video features 8-bit graphics. The song is timed to sync up to the team's Sochi bobsled run. The song was widely shown on television Olympics coverage in the lead-up to the team's run. [39]
A video game based on no particular year's team was released for the Wii on October 12th, 2010. Titled Sled Shred featuring the Jamaican Bobsled Team and published by SouthPeak Games, it features characters steered by tilting the Wii Remote sliding down icy paths in varied scenery atop various sleds. [40]
Bobsleigh or bobsled is a winter sport in which teams of 2 to 4 athletes make timed runs down narrow, twisting, banked, iced tracks in a gravity-powered sleigh. International bobsleigh competitions are governed by the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation.
Skeleton is a winter sliding sport in which a person rides a small sled, known as a skeleton bobsled, down a frozen track while lying face down and head-first. The sport and the sled may have been named from the bony appearance of the sled.
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 Leon, Doug E. Doug, Rawle D. Lewis, Malik Yoba and John Candy. In the film, former Olympian Irving Blitzer (Candy) coaches a novice four-man bobsleigh team from Jamaica, led by sprinter Derice Bannock (Leon).
Sandra Kiriasis is a German former bobsledder who has competed from 2000 to 2014.
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 International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation (IBSF) is the international sports federation for the sliding sports of Bobsleigh and Skeleton. It was founded on 23 November 1923 by the delegates of Great Britain, France, Switzerland, Canada, and the United States at the meeting of their first International Congress in Paris, France. In June 2015, it announced a name change from FIBT to IBSF. The federation's headquarters are in Lausanne, Switzerland.
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.
Dudley Clifford "Tal" Stokes is a Jamaican bobsledder and bobsled coach. He competed at the 1988, 1992, 1994 and the 1998 Winter Olympics.
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.
Germany competed at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, from 9 to 25 February 2018, with 153 competitors in 14 sports. They won 31 medals in total, 14 gold, 10 silver and 7 bronze, ranking second in the medal table after Norway at the 2018 Winter Olympics. Germany excelled in ice track events, biathlon, Nordic combined and Ski jumping. The men's ice hockey team took a silver medal, having lost a closely contested final to Olympic Athletes from Russia.
Romania competed at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, from 9 to 25 February 2018, with 27 competitors in 8 sports.
Brazil competed at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, from 9 to 25 February 2018, with 9 competitors in 5 sports.
Croatia competed at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, from 9 to 25 February 2018, with 19 competitors in four sports.
Monaco competed at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, from 9 to 25 February 2018. The official team was unveiled on January 24, 2018. The Monegasque team consisted of four athletes competing in two sports: alpine skiing and bobsleigh.
The two-man bobsleigh competition at the 2018 Winter Olympics was held on 18 and 19 February at the Alpensia Sliding Centre near Pyeongchang, South Korea. Justin Kripps and Alexander Kopacz of Canada and Francesco Friedrich and Thorsten Margis of Germany shared gold after the two teams recorded exactly the same time after four runs. Oskars Melbārdis and Jānis Strenga of Latvia won the bronze medal.
Nigeria sent a delegation to compete at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea from 9–25 February 2018. This marked the debut for the country at the Winter Olympics. The delegation consisted of three bobsledders, who finished 19th in the two-woman competition, and skeleton racer Simidele Adeagbo who came in 20th in the women's event.
Jamaica competed at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, from 9 to 25 February 2018, with three competitors in two sports.
Jamaica competed at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China, from 4 to 20 February 2022.
Trinidad and Tobago competed at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China, from 4 to 20 February 2022. It is the country's first appearance in 20 years at the Winter Olympics.
