When was cool runnings set

They took their idea for a Jamaica bobsled team to the country's Olympic association. Stokes said he got into bobsledding because a colonel in the Army told him to. From the Reddit AMA :. I got into bobsledding because I was told to go. I was in the Army at the time. The Colonel made the suggestion to me and because I was a Captain, you do as your told and obey orders.

There were two Americans, George Finch and William Maloney who were big into push cart racing and thought it translated well to bobsledding.

You mix that with the Jamaican athleticism and they thought it could work with some of our track athletes. Once there, I was hooked. Coaches who were recruited from the U. They trained in Austria and Lake Placid, N. Stokes had very little training before the Olympics. Everybody loved Jamaica. So everything just kind of came together on that run for us, you know, we had an amazing start — the seventh fastest start time — and we loaded on to the sled really smoothly and everything was going well.

So I expected us to wave, which we did — when you look at the footage you can see the sled going in and out of the camera frame and the next thing I knew we were on our heads. I was embarrassed, man. So that pissed us off.

But people back home were really supportive, unbelievably so. To the point where the government made stamps with our faces on it. Devon Harris and Pvt. Michael White — and a civilian, Samuel Clayton. The film shows the men crashing into fields and farms as they practice.

In reality, the four players trained for three hours a day next to a soccer field in the Army barracks using a makeshift sled. Still, they relished in the opportunity. For Harris, the bobsled, while it was foreign to him, was still a ticket to broaden his horizons.

Wanting to be an Army officer was a dream and then I applied and the dream became a reality It is hard to get out of the ghetto. A month after being assembled, the team traveled to Lake Placid, N. It was no more flat surfaces, concrete or dirt.

The Cool Runnings characters had never felt the cold before, so they prepare themselves by climbing inside freezers. Harris and his teammates, however, had experienced the cold during their time in the Army. Jamaica actually did send a bobsleigh team to the Winter Olympics in Calgary in More from The Irish Times Golf. Gaelic Games. Home energy upgrades are now more important than ever. Commenting on The Irish Times has changed. To comment you must now be an Irish Times subscriber.

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