For a country that never, ever sees snow, Jamaica seems to love sports that are played in it.
Over the weekend, athletes from the Caribbean country qualified in not one but four Winter Olympic events.
First, Benjamin Alexander became the first Jamaican skier to qualify for the Olympic games. The 38-year-old former DJ had only three years of competitive skiing under his belt and he still made his Olympic dreams a reality.
Then on Monday Jamaica qualified in three bobsledding events, grabbing the last spot in the four-man bobsled, the last spot in the two-man bobsled, and a spot in the new Olympic event of women’s monobob.
The women’s team missed earning a spot in the two-woman event through a tiebreaker, but they’re the first alternate and can get in if a qualifying nation relinquishes its spot.
This marks the first time in 24 years that Team Jamaica qualified for four-man bobsled.
They first qualified in Olympic bobsledding in the 1988 Games in Calgary. There they fielded both two and four-man teams, and that four-man team was the inspiration for the classic 1993 film, “Cool Runnings”.
Jamaica fielded at least one men’s sled team in every Olympics between 1988 and 2002 and then qualified once again in 2014. Overall, they qualified in two-man six times (1988, 1992, 1994, 1996, 2000, 2004) and in four-man four times (1998, 1992, 1994, 1998). Their best finish (14th) came in two-man sled in 2014.
Those early teams included Jamaican bobsledding legend, Dudley Stokes.
Continue reading over at First and Pen.
This content has been brought to you by First and Pen in partnership with TheHub.News. First and Pen “amplifies local sports stories from voices of color to the national conscience…”
