Chris Stokes, a founding member of Jamaica’s first bobsled crew, recalls being mobbed by fans at the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics the moment he put on the team jacket and left the Olympic Village to go into town.
“That’s a rookie mistake which I made,” he recalled 38 years later, the buzz still echoing as the current quartet compete at the Milan Cortina Games.
“Even now, yesterday, when I came back from the track with the team in the van and they just opened the door to let me out, people saw Jamaica bobsled and we were absolutely mobbed,” Stokes told Reuters.
Stokes and his team were the inspiration for Disney’s “Cool Runnings,” a 1993 sports comedy about a Jamaican bobsled team’s quest to qualify for the 1988 Winter Games despite never having seen snow. Now a cult classic, the film has turned eyes to Jamaica’s bobsled teams at every Winter Olympics since.
Still, the four-man team seeks to top the sled’s best finish of 14th at Lillehammer 1994.