SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
The Jamaican bobsled team's underdog story became a sensation at the 1988 Calgary Olympics, inspiring the Hollywood film "Cool Runnings."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "COOL RUNNINGS")
DOUG E DOUG: (As Sanka Coffie) Feel the rhythm. Feel the rhyme. Get on up. It's bobsled time. Cool runnings.
SIMON: Four decades later, a new generation of Jamaican bobsledders is starting to ascend the sports international rankings, even though BJ Leiderman, who does our theme music, is not on the team. They want to win Jamaica's first winter Olympic medal. North Country Public Radio's David Escobar reports.
DAVID ESCOBAR, BYLINE: Before that first Olympic race in 1988, the Jamaican bobsled team had just six months of training and barely enough money to get by. They practiced at the former Olympic complex in Lake Placid with their coach Pat Brown, using a four-man sled patched together with duct tape. Brown says the venue didn't have a proper track to practice sled launches, so he had to get creative.
PAT BROWN: So the only thing I could come up with, I borrowed a buddy's truck, and we took our four-man down to the toboggan chute on the ice there, and we were pushing on the lake.
ESCOBAR: Brown's memories of the team pushing sleds across the frozen lake are a far cry from today's Jamaican bobsleigh squad.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Inaudible).
(SOUNDBITE OF BOBSLED SLEDDING)
ESCOBAR: Since arriving to Lake Placid in January, they've been digging their cleats into a state-of-the-art indoor bobsled track. That's where road manager Audra Segree watches team members dressed in sleek black racesuits push a training sled along an icy track.
AUDRA SEGREE: I would say I like where the program is heading. Granted, we have a lot to work on, but it's good to say we have a start.
ESCOBAR: The Jamaican team's goal is to win an Olympic medal within the next 10 years. Getting there requires experience and qualification points at events like this North American cup race in Lake Placid.
(SOUNDBITE OF RACE HORN)
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Sled in from Start 1. This is Shane Pitter and Tyreek Bucknor of team Jamaica.
ESCOBAR: Tyreek Bucknor is the brakeman for the team's two-man sled. Like many of his teammates, Bucknor didn't grow up bobsledding. He transitioned to the sport from football two years ago. He says it's hard to fit training in with the rest of his life, and he's still learning the technique. He's also adjusting to Lake Placid's frigid weather, which, like bobsled, doesn't happen in his home country.
TYREEK BUCKNOR: I remember when I had to come here, I had to tell people, like, hey, I can't come in for a certain amount of months because I have to do bobsledding in Jamaica. And it's like, I don't believe you. You have to show proof of that, you know? So...
ESCOBAR: The Olympic sports complex in Lake Placid is 1,800 miles away from Jamaica, but it's still the program's closest option for training. It's become a second home for generations of Jamaican bobsledders. When they're not racing or practicing, team members like 17-year-old Adanna Johnson hang out in a small warehouse to tune up the metal runners underneath their sleds.
(SOUNDBITE OF SANDING BOBSLED RUNNERS)
ESCOBAR: Johnson competed for Jamaica in the youth winter games just over a year ago. She says her hope is to establish herself at the professional level.
ADANNA JOHNSON: It's really good 'cause this is a sport where you can, like, stay in it for a while before you have to retire. So I'm really grateful that I can start at such a young age to progress.
ESCOBAR: Top finishes move the Jamaican team up the rankings and closer to their Olympic dreams. Sled pilot Shane Pitter says they're aiming high.
SHANE PITTER: And we want to do well in the Olympics so we could - there could even be another "Cool Runnings 2." We are the dream team now.
ESCOBAR: The bobsled team will head back to Jamaica after a final race in Lake Placid tomorrow. They might reach a winner's podium before they depart, but they're set out to prove something else - that a tropical nation can compete against the sport's biggest powerhouses.
For NPR News, I'm David Escobar in Lake Placid, New York.
(SOUNDBITE OF BOB MARLEY & THE WAILERS SONG, "IS THIS LOVE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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