Cool Runnings 2 - Team Jamaica
Richard Duncan
Organisational Change Agent & Specialist in solving tough business problems that make the World a better place
“I don’t focus on the athletic performance of Jamaican Bobsleigh, I focus on the idea of Jamaican bobsleigh; a vision, an idea and a dream in the midst of very unsupporting circumstances, but the power of the dream itself is so strong that you start to put the things together one by one.”
Christian Stokes – Vice President, Jamaican Bobsleigh Federation and former Olympian and member of the 1988 Jamaican Olympic 4-man Bobsleigh Team
This is not a story about winning medals, it’s a story about the triumph of teamwork and delivering something far greater than a world record or podium finish; it’s about hope and doing something special as a source of inspiration for others.
It all started with the 4-man team from Jamaica, known as ‘the small island with big hearts’, that went to Calgary for the 1988 XV Olympic Winter Games and inspired the 1993 Hollywood movie ‘Cool Runnings’. The athletes – Dudley Stokes, Devon Harris, Michael White and Chris Stokes (who replaced injured Caswell Allen as the fourth man and was only in Canada serendipitously to support his brother and new teammate Dudley).
They were the firm underdogs and at Calgary and whilst they set the seventh-fastest start for all the competitors, they never placed higher than 24th in the different runs and didn’t compete in the fourth and last run after they previously lost control of their bobsleigh and it flipped forcing them to climb out and famously push it to the end of the track. Whilst they were placed in last place overall, the story was more about the fact that they competed in the first place.
The brainchild of the Commercial Attaché to the American Embassy in Kingston and a US businessman, who took the idea to the Jamaican Olympic Association. Contrary to the Hollywood script, the team members were volunteers from the Jamaican Defence Force after initial public recruitment efforts failed. How then did this local story ever see the light of day and become a world phenomenon?
This typical underdog story might not normally have even been talked about outside of Jamaica had the US Ice Hockey team not been eliminated out of the Olympic competition, leaving the US television stations desperately needing to fill airtime and the four-man bobsleigh event became their new focus and the Jamaican team the new hero and darlings of the XVth Olympiad.
Whilst the 2-man team performed marginally better, placing ahead of New Zealand (2nd team), Portugal, US Virgin Islands and Mexico, it was the 4-man squad that stole the show and served to represent the triumph of the underdog and the importance of dreams, effort, commitment and self-belief, all of which the Jamaican team had in spades!
This is not where the story ends but begins as the athletes returned for subsequent Olympics in 1992 (Albertville, France), and some in 1994 (Lillehammer, Norway) and 1998 (Nagano, Japan), which served to foster a growing interest in the sport in their country and went on to inspire two Jamaican women to break into the sport. This is where the next chapter in the Jamaican bobsleigh team starts, Cool Runnings ‘2’ so to speak.
“She pushed pennies and did everything she could to follow this mission and she showed me that people like me can do that and that to me is success.”
Jasmin Fenlator, Driver, Jamaican bobsleigh team (talking of how she hopes to be remembered)
Jasmin was a US born Jamaican with a track record with the US bobsleigh team who was looking to return to her Jamaican roots and family. She was on a clear mission and was the perfect match for her partner Carrie.
“Winning a gold medal is not necessarily our goal. Our goal is to break the barrier and stigma people have…”
Carrie Russell, Brake Woman, Jamaican Bobsleigh Team
Carrie Russell, the brake woman, was a World University Games and World Championship sprinter recovering from career ending injuries who found her way into the sport of bobsleigh as a new way to use her speed, strength and power.
They were seen as the revitalisation of the Cool Runnings dream and together they trained hard with the type of fierce determination and drive that separates Olympians from great athletes.
If there is anything to learn from this yin & yang duo it’s that brain and brawn is simply not enough to assure victory in any sport or business. What further separates the greats from the goods is not the results alone. What distinguishes one team from another is their heart and soul. The truly great teams are those that work together to face the obstacles and triumph over adversity by being united with a common purpose.
This shared purpose is the cement that strengthens bonds, provides a platform for trust and enables individuals to perform measurably better as a group than would be possible individually.
In the case of Carrie and Jasmin they were looking to break through the sport’s gender glass ceiling as pioneers and prove that not only was this a sport that Jamaicans could compete at the highest level in, but that it was also a sport of the future for women. But this wasn’t the only noble threshold they broke through. Like their 1988 Olympic bobsleigh ‘Cool Runnings’ peers, they proved that the traditional sphere of track and field that had dominated the country’s Olympic representation beforehand was no longer the only sport that Jamaicans were capable at competing in at the highest levels of international competition.
Thus, their goal was to inspire the youth of today to dream, believe in what was possible and strive to be Olympians of the future, in whatever sport that may be.
This sense of higher purpose is what allows any team to face defeat with pride, knowing that they haven’t failed. In the case of Carrie and Jasmin, they came 19th in the competition at the PyeongChang Olympics in 2018, which many felt didn’t represent their true potential, but where they placed, while important, it wasn’t the main purpose or what fuelled their drive.
The real measure of what they were trying to achieve certainly wasn’t measurable in 2018 and may not be apparent anytime soon, but perhaps after 30 years by 2048 we might see Cool Runnings ‘3’.
“We didn’t care if we were the first ones to do it. We look at it more like okay we dug up the road for you, now you pave it.”
Jasmin Fenlator, Olympian and perhaps Jamaica’s very own Nostradamus
For a short clip about Carrie & Jasmin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMDvAQAc62U
For a short overview of the real story of the 1988 Cool Runnings Jamaican Olympic bobsleigh team: