Cool Olympic dreams


If this doesn’t remind you of the Cool Runnings movie then I don’t know what will because the Jamaican bobsleigh team is at it again.

Due to the coronavirus lockdown, the athletes have resorted to pushing a car around the streets of an English city to stay in shape, as they eye an Olympic qualification.

As reported on Reuters, some residents of Peterborough have offered their help to Shanwayne Stephens and Nimroy Turgott as they push a Mini down the road, before realising it is part of a new training regime to work around the closure of gyms in England.

Stephens, 29, told Reuters: “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?

“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 duo was apparently inspired to train this way by the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics men’s bobsleigh team which was immortalised in the 1993 film Cool Runnings.

They said they aimed to qualify for the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022 and then outperform the 1988 team, who did not officially finish the four-man bob competition after crashing.

“Those guys set a legacy, and a movie came out of it,” said Turgott, 27. “For me personally, I want to surpass that level, and even go beyond that.”


Turgott, who normally lives in Jamaica, has been staying with Stephens since January, and the pair had always planned to do summer training in Britain, albeit in gyms rather than on roads.

“If you’re able to do the same sort of training without the same equipment, then you should be able to achieve more with the right equipment,” he said. “The last Olympics, we missed it by one slot. And now we are using that experience as our motivation moving forward.”



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Aside from writing a variety of stories for Gulf Weekly (including reviews, community, fashion and sports reports) and the GDN, I also am an RJ on ....Read more

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