For a country that never, ever sees snow, Jamaica seems to love sports that are played in it.
Over the weekend, athletes from the Caribbean country qualified in not one but four Winter Olympic events.
First, Benjamin Alexander became the first Jamaican skier to qualify for the Olympic games. The 38-year-old former DJ had only three years of competitive skiing under his belt and he still made his Olympic dreams a reality.
Then on Monday Jamaica qualified in three bobsledding events, grabbing the last spot in the four-man bobsled, the last spot in the two-man bobsled, and a spot in the new Olympic event of women’s monobob.
The women’s team missed earning a spot in the two-woman event through a tiebreaker, but they’re the first alternate and can get in if a qualifying nation relinquishes its spot.
This marks the first time in 24 years that Team Jamaica qualified for four-man bobsled.
They first qualified in Olympic bobsledding in the 1988 Games in Calgary. There they fielded both two and four-man teams, and that four-man team was the inspiration for the classic 1993 film, “Cool Runnings”.
Jamaica fielded at least one men’s sled team in every Olympics between 1988 and 2002 and then qualified once again in 2014. Overall, they qualified in two-man six times (1988, 1992, 1994, 1996, 2000, 2004) and in four-man four times (1998, 1992, 1994, 1998). Their best finish (14th) came in two-man sled in 2014.
Those early teams included Jamaican bobsledding legend, Dudley Stokes.
Stokes participated in the two-man team in 1988, 1992 and 1994. He also competed with the four-man team in 1988, 1992, 1994 and 1998. Now’s he mentoring the aforementioned Benjamin Alexander.
The Jamaican women’s team qualified in two-woman sled in 2018, finishing 19th. They were led by 2014 U.S. Olympian, Jazmine Fenlator-Victorian, who switched to competing for her father’s country of Jamaica in 2016.
Now they’re going back to the Games in monobob, which features a single driver in the sled.
The Beijing Games, which begins next month, is a chance for Jamaica to improve upon its past finishes in sports that the country is not recognized for.
Let’s hope that the 2026 games will do one better and welcome the Jamaican hockey team.
