Jamaica qualify for four-man bobsled for first time since 1998
Jamaica have confirmed they will have a team in the four-man bobsled for the first time in the 21st century.
It will be the first time Jamaica has a team in the sport's marquee event since the 1998 Olympics in Nagano.
The team participated in the sport four times from 1988 to 98, with their debut popularised in the iconic film, Cool Runnings.
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In 2014, the team of Winston Watts and Marvin Dixon participated in the two-man event, while in 2018 the nation had a women's team for the first time with Jazmine Fenlator-Victorian and Carrie Russell finishing 19th in the two-woman event.
Shawayne Stephens tweeted his delight at the team's qualification - where due to COVID complications, they had to resort to unique training regimens.
"We had to come up with our own ways of replicating the sort of pushing we need to do. So that's why we thought: why not go out and push the car?" he told Reuters in May last year.
"We do get some funny looks. We've had people run over, thinking the car's broken down, trying to help us bump-start the car. When we tell them we're the Jamaica bobsleigh team, the direction is totally different, and they're very excited."
The Caribbean nation will have three teams - in the men's four and two-man, and the women's monobob. Their two-woman team is the first alternate.
Jamaica will also have a skiier in the giant slalom for the first time, after Benjamin Alexander qualified.
Alexander's career pivot is quite remarkable - he learned to ski at the age of 32, when he was a resort in Canada to DJ and party with friends.
"I was just there as you know, a house cat, making sure the beer was cold, making sure the Jacuzzi was warm and, you know, eating too much," he told Canada's CBC.
"And at the end of that lunch, I saw my friends pop on the 130-millimetre powder skis and just disappear over the ridge line," he said. "I thought that turned them into superheroes."
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