Sport
With funding woes behind them, Jamaican bobsled team promise stiff competition in Sochi
Two-man Jamaican bobsled team. PHOTO/Peter Andrews/Reuters
(Reuters) – “We are not just going there to participate.”
Defiant words of Winston Watts, the driver of Jamaica’s two-man bobsled team for next month’s Sochi Winter Olympics, as the tropical Caribbean island-nation continues its love affair with icy track for a sixth time in history.
Jamaica’s Sochi qualification comes 26 years after their ground-breaking quartet of Devon Harris, Dudley Stokes, Michael White, and Nelson Christian Stokes made a moving debut at the 1988 Calgary Games that inspired a movie, “Cool Runnings”, 5 years later.
“Most of those guys who were in the 1988 team were my teammates in 1994 and 1998 and they are still part of the federation,” Watts told reporters from Jamaica’s training based in Wyoming, USA on Wednesday.
The 46-year-old Watts, who competed at the 1994, 1998 and 2002 Games, said the movie left a deep impression on the mind of Jamaica’s young generation.
His views were shared by Stokes, a 4-time Winter Olympian, and now the general secretary of the Jamaica Bobsled Federation.
“I don’t think the support for the team, like we’ve seen over the last 3 days, would have been sustainable without the ongoing appeal of the movie,” Stokes told reports from the Turks and Caicos Islands.
