by Cedric ‘BIG CED’ Thornton
February 21, 2026
“We’re mainly rewriting historical past.”
Practically 40 years after the primary Jamaican bobsleigh workforce debuted on the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics, inspiring the 1994 hit film, Cool Runnings, the workforce on the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina, Italy, is seeking to construct on that basis.
“What occurred within the 1988 Video games, the place Jamaica competed at their first Olympics, that was like a begin for the longer term for us, in order that’s nonetheless like a motivation to us, and we take that with us each day,” pilot Shane Pitter mentioned, in response to Blavity. “It’s form of an additional motivation to do higher than the final workforce and the final workforce earlier than; we actually work exhausting.”
The Jamaican workforce consists of ladies’s monobob Mica Moore. Pitter, together with push athletes Andrae Dacres, Junior Harris, Tyquendo Tracey, and Joel Fearon, compete within the two-man and four-man sleds all through the Winter Video games.
Expectations are excessive. Final November, the workforce received the four-man gold on the Worldwide Bobsleigh and Skeleton North American Cup in in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada. It was the nation’s first gold medal at a world bobsleigh race.
“We’re mainly rewriting historical past,” Harris mentioned. “If you happen to guys keep in mind the film fairly properly, what we’re doing now—the victories and the recognition that we’re getting proper now, it’s mainly like within the film, and we’re simply rewriting it in actual life.”
The Jamaican workforce continues to be reeling from Hurricane Melissa, which occurred in October.
“Lots of people haven’t but recovered from Hurricane Melissa, and since they’re not like recovered, that’s nonetheless a motivation for me heading into the Video games to simply work more durable and more durable and relieve some spirits which can be being damaged from the hurricane,” Pitter mentioned.
Additionally they wish to present the world, as soon as once more, {that a} workforce from sunny Jamaica can excel at a winter sport.
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