Cool Runnings and Beyond The Story of the Jamaica Bobsleigh Team
Copyright © Nelson Christian Stokes. 2002. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Cool Runnings and Beyond The Story of the Jamaica Bobsleigh Team
Nelson Christian Stokes
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Dedication To my son Gabriel and all that might have been
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Coming in from the Cold by Bob Marley and the Wailers Coming in from the cold In this life, in this life, in this life In this oh sweet life We’re coming in from the cold We’re coming in, coming in, coming in Coming in from the cold It’s you, it’s you, it’s you I’m talking to Well you, it’s you, it’s you It’s you I’m talking to now Why do you look so sad and forsaken? When one door is closed Don’t you know another is open Would you let the system Make you kill your brotherman? No dread no Would you make the system Make you kill your brotherman? No dread no Would you make the system Get on top of your head again? No dread no Well the biggest man you ever Did see was just a baby
In this life, in this life In this oh sweet life We’re coming in from the cold We’re coming in, coming in, coming in We’re coming in from the cold It’s life, it’s life, it’s life Coming in from the cold We’re coming in, coming in, coming in Coming in from the cold
Copyright © 1980 Fifty-Six Hope Road Music Ltd./Odnil Music Ltd./ Blue Mountain Music Ltd. (PRS). All rights for the United States controlled and administered by Rykomusic, Inc. (ASCAP). International Copyright Secured. All rights reserved. Used by Permission
Foreword Anyone experiencing the very great honor of participating in the Olympic Games knows it is a life-changing experience whatever the result of one’s endeavors. It is not a one-time thing, either. It evolves as the years pass until the actual sporting accomplishment pales, and it becomes clear the essence of sport lies not in the competition but in those who participate. We may celebrate teams of destiny, but in a cast of “extraordinaries” there are always a few individuals whose exploits are forever etched in the memories of true fanatics and casual observers alike. These players become folk heroes—instantly recognizable, a reference point for memories—and unique sportsmen whose accomplishments come close to symbolizing the sport itself rather than the converse. They transcend. The Jamaican Bobsleigh Team is one such phenomenon. Like the Yanks, Man U, Babe Ruth, Pele, Muhammad Ali, or JeanClaude Killy, these guys are known worldwide. I know, because in my vocation and my sport avocation, I have the opportunity to travel throughout the globe, often in locales that not only have never experienced snow, but also where ice sports rarely slide
across the public consciousness. For me, casual conversation quickly turns to sport, then Olympic sport, then to Olympic winter sport and finally to my particular esoteric interests of bobsleigh and skeleton. Invariably, this exploration leads down two tracks, particularly for the uninitiated. The first is usually a statement followed by a reflection on the sanity of the participants, the second accompanied by a broad smile and a request: “Tell me about the Jamaican Bobsleigh Team.” I have a stock answer for the first having to do with the eternal sporting verities of strength, speed, teamwork, talent, and the intelligence and will to win. But the second question is far more difficult for me to answer. Simply, almost anything I might relate is insignificant in light of the truth of the personalities, not the team, who caught the fancy of the sporting public everywhere, brought Hollywood to their door, and have become—quite apart from the five rings themselves—a brand as recognizable as any other in sport. But for me such is only the tip of the iceberg. I contend the most remarkable aspect of this story, which separates it from yet another “Boys’ Own” sports chronicle, is the content of the character of the Stokes brothers, their teammates, and their colleagues. In the pages following, you will read about the journey taken by this group of exceptional sportsmen, the spectacular accomplishments, and the dramatic setbacks that make the story of the team more than noteworthy. If you are a particularly intuitive reader, you may get an inkling of the size and scope of the challenge these men set for themselves and achieved with distinction. If you are a sports buff with some familiarity with the skills required to rank in the top echelon of the world’s bobsledders, you might appreciate the magnitude of a world top-ten ranking. However, none truly go to the heart of the matter.
Dudley “Tal” Stokes and his brother Chris are leaders. They are leaders in their sporting community, their own community, and by dint of their leadership have shown the way for aspirants everywhere. It is not so much what they have accomplished on the playing field that is to be celebrated. Rather, it is an extraordinary spirit inspiring their quest that informs. Cool Runnings and Beyond is a story of dedication and commitment, bravery and indomitable joy. It is also a history of Jamaica, of a sport, of adventure and derring-do, of pride and dignity, a primer of grace under pressure. That it is a story of sporting excellence is almost understated. But the book holds something special for everyone with a dream yet to realize. The Stokes brothers and their colleagues show us how goals are achieved and lives changed. Read, learn, enjoy, and profit. Chris Stokes writes in a straightforward style, logical, determined, and clear. Just like the brothers’ vision when they first contemplated bobsleigh Olympic glory. But take the time to read between the lines. There is true inspiration here. Oh yes, when you are finished, give Cool Runnings and Beyond to a kid. Come to think of it, give it to lots of kids. Robert H. Storey, president Fédération Internationale de Bobsleigh et de Tobogganing Ottawa, February 2002
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Contents Foreword ...............................................................................9 Introduction .........................................................................15
Part I — Different Worlds .............................................. 19 Chapter 1 – Fire...................................................................21 Chapter 2 – Ice ....................................................................41
Part II — Jamaica Bobsleigh ..............................................59 Chapter 3 - Fire on Ice—Hope for the Beginning...............61 Chapter 4 - Fire on Ice—Fear for the End...........................83 Chapter 5 - Coming in from the Cold..................................95 Chapter 6 - A Dream Deferred ..........................................115 Chapter 7 - A Time to Sow ...............................................135 Chapter 8 - The Fire Within ..............................................161
Part III — Cornerstones ....................................................177 Chapter 9 – Desire.............................................................179 Chapter 10 – Belief ...........................................................195 Chapter 11 – Work ............................................................213 Chapter 12 - Running Things ............................................241 Chapter 13 - One Day at a Time........................................265 Index..................................................................................279 Bibliography......................................................................291 Photos ................................................................................297 Acknowledgments .............................................................327 About the Author...............................................................331
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Introduction As the news spread around the world in 1988 that Jamaica had a bobsled team, it was greeted with curiosity by some, cheers for the underdogs by others, and humor by most. The surprising concept became a joke bordering on being a prank. This latter view concerned the International Olympic Committee and the Fédération Internationale de Bobsleigh et de Tobogganing, which did not want their movement and their sport respectively being taken for, as we say in Jamaica, a “poppy show.” Such reaction was of course understandable. Jamaica is a tropical country, which did not even have snow in the ice age. It was known for sun, sea, and sand, a tourist paradise where the only skiing was done on water and not on ice. As far as sports were concerned, Jamaica was known for track-and-field athletes and for excelling in this arena of Olympic endeavor far beyond what its size—smaller than Connecticut—might suggest. In contrast, bobsleighing in particular was the most exclusive among those seen as ex-
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clusive winter sports. It was expensive and had a history of aristocratic participation. Surely these Jamaicans were joking. For the first several years the dichotomy of Jamaica Bobsleigh formed the punch line of jokes on sitcoms and in stand-up comedy shows around the world. But things have changed. The initial view of the team as a comic endeavor was at once a help and a hindrance. We were innocuous and we offered fair entertainment for the press and the Games. This publicity enabled us to establish a foundation of popularity and name recognition that has been invaluable in securing sponsorships to this day. But we were serious and wanted to be taken seriously. The fact of the formation of a Jamaican Bobsleigh Team is not the product of practical jokers but of visionaries whose minds easily accepted and contemplated the creation of the seemingly impossible. The vision of the founding fathers has been vindicated as we look back on the history of the team to date. Rebounding from the initial crash in 1988, the team moved to finish as the ninth nation in bobsleigh in the 1994 Olympic Games, and win world championships for the bobsleigh push in 2000 and 2001. This is not the legacy of comics. The development of the team has endured a roller coaster of emotions, long and dark valleys rising sharply to occasional peaks, but such is the nature of triumph. The team has moved so far, has done so well, and has overcome so much because of a philosophy that has little to do with the sport specifically, but much to do with achievement in
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Introduction life. This philosophical underpinning has guided the team through the valleys. One cannot understand or therefore explain the enigma that is Jamaica bobsleigh without understanding this philosophy. But as is true in so much in life, we learn as we go. The development of the team was an adaptive process, a twisting and turning and willingness to try and to fail and to learn and to, yes, try again. To believe in your cause and to hold your head up when opponents look at you with scorn and when your worst fears of failure have been realized. It has not been a journey for those who seek short-term fame. It became a journey for those intent on leaving a mark along the path trod by others and courageous enough to chart new paths where the next generation of dreamers may know that sometimes, every now and then, dreams do come true.
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Part I Different Worlds
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Chapter 1 Fire “I affirm of Jamaica that we are a great people. Out of the past of fire and suffering and neglect, the human spirit has survived—patient and strong, quick to anger, quick to forgive, lusty and vigorous, but with deep reserves of loyalty and love and a deep capacity for steadiness under stress and for joy in all the things that make life good and blessed.” Norman Manley-Jamaican national hero Jamaica bobsleigh, heralded as it is, must be seen in perspective. It is a leaf among many leaves on a branch of a tree with many branches that stands tall and proud, reaching for the sky with each new branch and anchored firmly in the earth of its experiences, with deep roots.
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Paradise Jamaica is a remarkable island. The impressive and positive impact of Jamaicans in various fields of endeavor is a matter of record. Jamaica has given the world reggae music and its most renowned pioneer Bob Marley, whose album Exodus was named best album of the century by Time magazine, and whose single, “One Love,” was named “Single of the Century” by the British Broadcasting Corporation, the BBC. Harry Belafonte made a significant contribution to the globalization of the calypso sound through his perennial crowd favorite, “Day-O,” before becoming deeply involved in acting and the civil rights and human rights struggles in the USA and indeed around the world. Karen Nelson, my cousin, is one of the leading genetic scientists in the world, and her work has been featured on public television in the USA. In sports, Jamaica has given the world many heroes representing Jamaica and other countries including NBA and Dream Team superstar Patrick Ewing; 1992 Olympic gold medalist in the 100-meter, Linford Christie, representing Britain; 1996 Olympic gold medalist and former worldrecord holder in the 100-meter, Donavon Bailey, representing Canada. Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican national hero, did much to advance the interests of black people around the world and set the stage for the civil rights movement of the late 1950s and the 1960s. In business, Jamaica has produced Michael Lee Chin, who has risen to become one of the wealthiest men living in Canada through his mutual fund company, AIC. Chris
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Fire Blackwell revolutionized the music and entertainment industry in Jamaica, while Gordon “Butch” Stewart of Sandals and Air Jamaica, and John Issa of SuperClubs have developed through Jamaica world-class businesses. Among the five hundred or so chess grandmasters in the world, including Gary Kasparov, Maurice Ashley is the only black person, and he is, of course, Jamaican. The only person outside of the USA to have won the annual ScrippsHoward National Spelling Bee competition is Jamaica’s Jody-Anne Maxwell. I list here not a catalog but a mere sample of the endeavors and individuals who stand as icons of excellence in their various fields, sharing the common foundation of being “sons and daughters” of the soil, Jamaica. Still, anyone who has ever visited the island will readily concede that the phenomenal beauty of the island herself surpasses the phenomenal achievement of its people. Jamaica lies near the middle of the Caribbean Sea— which seems appropriate for an island—and perhaps more than any other serves as a symbol of things Caribbean. The island is 90 miles south of Cuba and 100 miles west of Haiti. Encompassing 4,411 square miles, the longest distance from east to west is 146 miles, and it is 51 miles at its widest points. For the record, Jamaica was discovered by a group of people who migrated here from South America about 600 A.D. called Tainos. They called the island “Yamaye,” which means land of wood and water. The Tainos could also have easily added mountains to their description. Almost nine hundred years after the Tainos arrived, Christopher Columbus landed in Jamaica on May 4, 1494. Upon 23
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returning to the Spanish court to report on his second voyage, Columbus, as legend has it, told King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella that he had beheld and encountered “the fairest island eyes have beheld; mountainous and the land seems to touch the sky.” When asked to describe the island further, Columbus simply crushed up a piece of paper and threw it on the ground. I am not sure his gesture, if true, would have done justice to the island. What is irrefutable is that the island is dominated by mountains, rising sharply from the sea, running from east to west, as if the earth herself wished to strengthen this land. The country’s summit, Blue Mountain Peak, is approximately 7,402 feet above sea level and stands near its eastern end. Approximately half the island is 1,000 or more feet above sea level. These features may be explained by the fact that the island is actually one of the summits of a submarine range of mountains that run in an arched archipelago from South America to Florida. Alluvial plains on the southern side of the island complement the island’s mountainous features, most notably the Liguanea Plain where the nation’s capital Kingston and its suburbia St. Andrew have been built. The Liguanea Plain flattens into the Kingston Harbor, the seventh largest harbor in the world, with approximately eight miles of navigable water. The rugged mountains are covered in lush vegetation, speckled with fruit trees, and the island’s many rivers cascading to the sea are sustained by an annual mean temperature of 80 degrees Fahrenheit and annual rainfall of 77 inches. Jamaica is tropical and can get hot and humid to the
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Fire point of being uncomfortable but bearable. The mountainous interior of the island results in a more temperate climate in those regions. The island rests in the caressing embrace of the Caribbean Sea with its various shades of blue cascading into white foam as it touches the shore. Beaches line the shores of the island at irregular intervals; the most beautiful—made of fine white sand—lie along the north coast of the island. Standing at the top of the Santa Cruz mountains overlooking the Pedro Plains beneath and then off into the distance at the Caribbean Sea, the newly hired Jamaica bobsleigh coach, Trond Knaplund, a Norwegian, watched a tropical sun set red on Jamaica’s horizon, and was heard to murmur in awe, “This is what we Europeans call paradise.” Roots Perhaps not until the publication of Sir Philip Sherlock’s monumental study, The Story of the Jamaican People, have Jamaicans fully grasped the history of Jamaica from a Jamaican perspective. Up until then, and perhaps predominantly still, our story is told from a Eurocentric perspective. Who Jamaicans are as a people, their successes and failures, fame and infamy can only be fully understood against the backdrop of the people’s history. The Tainos are believed to have migrated to the larger islands of Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Hispaniola from either Guyana or Venezuela where their descendants live today. They shared a common language, Arawakan, with a related group called the Caribs from which the Caribbean Sea de-
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rives its name. Collectively, the Caribs and Tainos have been referred to as Arawaks. The Tainos lived a day-to-day existence depending on fishing, hunting, and the cultivation of cassava for their livelihood. They also enjoyed the island’s natural endowment of fruits including naseberries, star apples, and guavas. They were a relaxed and peaceful people who spent a fair amount of time resting in hammocks and playing a court-based game called bato. Two worries plagued the Tainos: the threat of attack from the Caribs, a warlike people, who would kill the Taino men and take their women as wives or slaves; and the god Huracan whose fierce wind and rain arose from time to time and destroyed all in its path. They were to learn to fear a third. When Columbus arrived in Jamaica, he was welcomed by the Tainos, who helped sustain him and his one hundred crew members for over a year when they were stranded. The Tainos in Jamaica were not to survive contact with the Spanish, who tried to enslave them to do their domestic work and mine for gold. Many chose death to enslavement—committing suicide. Others escaped to the mountains and started settlements that were to evolve into Maroon states, where the Tainos provided refuge for escaped slaves. The Maroon’s first members came from slaves of the Spanish who left them behind as they fled the British conquest of the island. Many of these slaves were Moors, and they formed a sophisticated system of self-governance. After failing to defeat them in a series of battles, the British accepted the independence of this band of people that has developed its own unique culture, which exists and thrives
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Fire today. Tainos were Jamaica’s first freedom fighters. Alas, the physical savagery of the invaders, and the spread of the diseases that they carried, decimated the local Taino population within eighty years of Columbus’s arrival. All that remains today are a few artifacts, including a few zemis or deities that are on display at the National Gallery of Jamaica, as well as a few Spanish corruptions of Arawakan names such as Ocho Rios. Mine as the Tainos did, they found no gold, which was greatly disappointing to the Spanish—after all, what use is a colony without gold? Nevertheless, they understood Jamaica’s strategic location in the Caribbean Sea and used it as a military base where they launched many expeditions and conquests into the Americas, including Mexico, which yielded for them their much coveted gold and silver. The Spanish, it seems, viewed Jamaica as more of a convenience than a treasured colony. The local population under the Spanish, despite the beginning of the importation of African slaves, was never large. Economic activity reflected the island’s low status, confined mainly to local consumption and the stocking of the Spanish war machine. The island was governed from Santiago de la Vega, which benefited from Spain’s elegant architecture—still evident today in what is now called Spanish Town. In 1655, British Admiral Cromwell had dispatched Admiral Penn and General Venables to the island of Hispaniola—home of modern-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Their mission was to capture it from the Spanish. They failed and, being resourceful, sought to return to England with something, rather than nothing, even perhaps a small thing. On May 10 of that year, they landed at Passage 27
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Fort in Kingston Harbor and set out to wrest Santiago de la Vega from the Spanish. Faced with this challenge, the Spanish figured that there was little at stake except their pride since the island had still not, up until then, amounted to much. They offered little resistance—fleeing to the north coast and Cuba. Like their victims the Tainos, the influence of the Spanish remains today only in a few buildings and names. The British were far better organized and more visionary colonizers than the Spanish. Gold was not the only game in town. Land and labor had value. The British settled on sugarcane as the crop of choice for Jamaica after a brief experiment with cocoa. They at first used indentured European labor but this proved insufficient. The British then turned to the large-scale importation of Africans, expanding a practice at first modestly begun by the Spanish. There were 1,400 African slaves in Jamaica in 1658. By 1673, the number reached 9,500. With the rapid expansion of the sugar and slave-based plantation economy, the number of Africans rose to 45,000 by 1703. Over the next 100 years, 662,000 Africans were brought into Jamaica where they were enslaved to work on Jamaica’s vast sugar plantations. Indeed, Jamaica’s first pride of place from a Eurocentric perspective was its recognition as one of the “jewels in the English crown” because of the great wealth it brought to those Englishmen who came to Jamaica as plantation owners, and because of the significant contributions it made to the development of England herself, particularly her port towns of Liverpool and Bristol. Of such importance were sugar and slaves to the enrichment of England that slaves
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Fire from Africa to the Caribbean, sugar from the Caribbean to England, and manufactured goods—mostly cheap and of low quality—from England to Africa forged the Golden Triangle, a phrase coined by economists and historians describing this period. While the slave trade enriched Britain, it caused unimaginable pain for those who, as Bob Marley put it, were “Stolen from Africa,” and was to exert a tremendous long-term impact on the underdevelopment of Africa herself which is evident until this day. The would-be slaves were captured and sold in Africa to the British, first perhaps as a side benefit of war and then as an activity in itself. African against African carried out this activity for the most part. From the time of his capture, the lot of the African was to be one of almost complete anguish. Slave ships were jammed from helm to stern with Africans for the voyage of the Middle Passage—from the west coast of Africa to the Caribbean. The mortality rate on this voyage was between thirteen and thirty-three percent. Only the strongest mentally and physically were to survive—the first test of what Darwin may have called natural selection. Such was the experience of Africans arriving in Jamaica, mainly from Ghana, the Akan-Ashanti and Coromanti people, the Yoruba, Ibo, and Ibibio of Nigeria and the Niger Delta. A West Indian planter Codrington, reflecting on the origins and character of Africans brought to Jamaica, referred to them as “born heroes.” Having survived the Middle Passage, these slaves found their lot improved only marginally with the mortality rate remaining high due to sheer overwork. African-Jamaicans until this day retain the physical strength, mental toughness, and spirit of optimism 29
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and creativity that was honed by those ancestors who found how to overcome tremendous difficulties and oppression. From late 1831 into early 1832, Sam Sharpe, now a national hero, led an uprising of slaves in western Jamaica. His was not a call to arms but rather a call for the withdrawal of labor. Nevertheless events took a violent turn among the twenty thousand African-Jamaicans involved. By May 1832, Sharpe was to pay with his life at the gallows in Montego Bay in the square that now bears his name. From the moment of capture, through the Middle Passage and onto the plantations, African-Jamaicans never ceased to struggle, covertly and overtly, for freedom. By the end of the eighteenth century, this struggle was supported by a growing antislavery sentiment in Britain and by the decline in the economic importance to Britain of sugarcane. Britain passed the Abolition of Slavery Act on August 28, 1833, abolishing slavery as of August 1, 1834. The act states in part that “whereas divers persons are held in slavery within divers of His Majesty’s colonies and it is just and expedient that all such persons should be manumitted and set free….” Slavery was to be replaced by a six-year transition period of apprenticeship, with the former slaves being paid for their services. The apprenticeship period was an operational disaster and was soon abandoned. By August 1, 1838, all former slaves received full freedom. Now left to their own devices, many former slaves turned to small farming in the mountainous interior of the island on hard-to-cultivate and marginally productive land. Others leased or bought land on the plains near plantations. The Protestant church played a critical role in the transition
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Fire to self-reliance by former slaves. Still, issues over land ownership were of primary concern following emancipation and played a major role in the Morant Bay Rebellion of 1865 led by another national hero, Paul Bogle. Before the untimely demise of Bogle, he managed to lay the foundations of the concepts of economic and political freedom and land ownership to be amplified and broadened by Marcus Garvey. Whether or not one agreed with the idea of repatriation to Africa as Garvey proposed, the idea that independence from Britain was central to the continued equitable development of Jamaica began to take root in the minds of the African-Jamaican. Frustrated by difficult economic times and poor working conditions in 1938, Jamaicans across the island protested their condition—from the docks in Kingston to the sugar estates in the parish of Westmoreland. Norman Manley and Alexander Bustamante emerged as national leaders who would lead Jamaica to independence from Britain. The granting of universal adult suffrage in 1944 laid the foundation for the rapid growth and increase in power of the two political parties founded in 1938, Bustamante’s Jamaica Labor Party and Norman Manley’s Peoples National Party. Due largely to the agitation of Manley and Bustamante, in 1944 Britain agreed to a new constitution for Jamaica that provided for some self-government. Full internal government was achieved in 1959, and on August 6, 1962, Jamaica became another of the Commonwealth’s independent nations. Jamaica has failed to deliver on its promise since independence. While rich in the arts, culture, and sports, Jamaica is economically a poor country, with far too many of 31
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its citizens living in poverty. Still it is from these AfricanJamaicans, descendants of survivors of the Middle Passage and the ravages of slavery, freedom fighters, fiercely independent, determined to leave their mark, that Jamaica has drawn its greatest athletes. Legends It was two weeks before the 1978 National High School Track and Field Championships, commonly but respectfully referred to as “Boys Champs,” and training sessions were thick with intensity and focus. Such were the training sessions at Calabar High School, the defending national champions; every heaving breath of sweat-washed athletes put life into the school’s motto—The Utmost for the Highest. I had entered Calabar High School from St. Richards Primary, a few stops north on Red Hills road in the parish of St. Andrew on the number 37 Jamaica Omnibus Service bus. Before I was five I knew I had a gift to run fast. My brother, Dudley “Tal” Stokes, knew it, too, and seemed to take some pride in my talent. He always believed I was faster, better than I thought I was. This belief in me would lend courage to a decision, many years later, to test me once again and create a sporting phenomenon. Before then, my brother settled for a series of modest challenges against bigger, older opponents, which all came to an abrupt end when I was convincingly beaten in a short sprint on the road by the sea near Galina, St. Mary, by a high school girl. That she was twice my age lent no comfort at the time.
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Fire Such setbacks notwithstanding, I continued to perform creditably on the track through primary school and into high school. By the time I was in the ninth grade, I had earned the honor of donning the green and black colors of Calabar High School as we went once again into battle. My role was simple: to run the first leg of the relay for the Under-15, 4x100-meter team. It was during this experience I understood for the first time the power of surrounding oneself with champions. Attitude filled the air and I soaked it up like a sponge. My role was small but I belonged; I was a champion. There I was, then, in the final stages of preparation for the championships, which meant for me long sessions of baton exchanges, of too-short take-off marks, then too long, of running into the back of my teammate and of not catching him, and worst of all, the dreaded clatter of the baton bouncing off the hard gray dirt of the Calabar track as it fell. This was not good enough for any coach, let alone for the man who was in charge of our baton exchanges that day. He did not spend much time with my relay team, and everyone wanted to be at his best for this training session. He walked over to me, wearing a black pair of loafers, a dark gray pair of pants, and a green polo shirt with a thick black stripe down the middle of the chest. His long loping strides brought him quickly to me, with a baton in his right hand and perfection on his mind. “Catch him, Chris, catch him—no matter what happens, make sure you pass the baton.” “Yes, Mr. McKenley,” I replied. Twenty-six years earlier at the Helsinki Summer Olympics, on Sunday, July 27, 1952, Herb McKenley, along 33
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with Arthur Wint, Leslie Laing, and George Rhoden, reached through the ceiling of a nation’s imagination, shattering its self-imposed limitations, and firmly and gloriously set the bar of performance against which all Jamaican teams, in whatever sport, will be measured. On that day, the foursome set a world and Olympic record in winning the gold medal in the 4x400-meter relay with a time of 3.03.9. In doing so, the team relegated the United States and its team of Matson, Cole, Moore, and Whitfield to the unfamiliar position of second place in this event, and it is the only time in track-and-field history that the United States has not held the world record for this event. The cast members were dominant in their own right. Arthur Wint won gold in the 400-meter and silver in the 800meter at the 1948 Olympic Games in London. In Helsinki, he was fifth in the 400-meter and second again in the 800meter. Leslie Laing was sixth in the 200-meter in London and fifth in Helsinki. After being eliminated at the semifinal stage in the 1948 Games, George Rhoden returned in 1952 to win the gold in the 400-meter. Herb McKenley was fourth in the 200-meter and second in the 400-meter in 1948 and second in the 100-meter and 400-meter in 1952. In London, he was favored to win the 400-meter but was upstaged in the final meters of the race by teammate Arthur Wint. In the 100-meter final in Helsinki, McKenley grew more impressive through the preliminary rounds and entered the finals as the favorite. He, however, lost in a photofinish decision to Lindy Remigino of the United States in what became the closest 100-meter final in Olympic his-
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Fire tory. Herb McKenley remains the only athlete in the history of the Olympics to reach the 100-meter, 200-meter, and 400-meter finals. The individual excellence of the team members was only surpassed by their performance as a team. In 1948, the same quartet thought well of their chances of victory in the 4x400-meter. After finding themselves in second position after the first and second legs by Rhoden and Laing and with the flat 400-meter gold and silver medalists Wint and McKenley to come, hopes were understandably building. However, the towering but elegant Wint pulled up injured, thereby putting an end to those hopes so recently high. Such adversity breaks or binds—the athletes must choose. The choice was clear four years later in Helsinki. Perhaps most remarkable is that Herb McKenley, the most celebrated of the athletes, who had twice seen gold turn to silver in his hands, overcame this disappointment to produce what ranks with Bob Hayes’s 4x100-meter anchor leg at the 1964 Games as the most stunning relay performance in Olympic, if not track-and-field, history. Receiving the baton fifteen meters behind the American Moore, Herb McKenley gradually but purposefully eroded the lead, rose above personal disappointments and individual glory, and in a crescendo of incredibility handed the baton over to Rhoden with a one-meter lead on the American anchor Whitfield. Rhoden maintained the lead for gold. The events taking place over these two Olympic Games established clearly to the world what the late Jamaican sports journalist Raymond Sharpe called “the potency and potential of Jamaican athleticism.” Since 1952, Jamaica has established itself as a world force in athletics, producing a 35
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consistent string of Olympic medalists, both men and women, including George Kerr, Lennox Miller, Donald Quarrie, Winthrop Graham, Gregory Haughton, Merlene Ottey, Grace Jackson, Juliet Cuthbert, and Deon Hemmings. Add to this the Jamaican birth and development of Ben Johnson, Linford Christie, and Donavon Bailey, then one can readily see that on a per capita basis, Jamaica may be considered the mother of the fastest athletes on earth. The predominance of speed-strength athletic capabilities among Jamaicans is evident but hard to explain. The answer warrants proper research but is certain to be complex and to involve the island’s geography, childhood games, and perhaps most importantly, purchase and sales points of the Golden Triangle of the slave trade. African-Jamaicans are primarily descendants of West African peoples, as previously stated. Even today we see that the dominant African sprinters originate from West Africa as opposed to Africa’s magnificent distance runners who tend to come from North or East Africa. Certainly, the genetic makeup of West Africans, coupled with the effect of what I have previously termed the natural selection of the Middle Passage, is worth studying in terms of its impact on the skeletal and muscular composition of AfricanJamaicans. We know, for example, that a predominance of white muscle fiber is crucial to the effective demonstration of speed-strength capabilities in athletes. Indeed, through the use of short sprints, plyometric jumps, and heavy and explosive weight lifts, the potential of white muscle fiber or fast twitch muscles may be enhanced. We also know that
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Fire while speed-strength capabilities may be significantly enhanced through training, their presence in the first instance is a genetic gift. Perhaps Jamaicans are also gifted in this sense. Jamaican genetic composition notwithstanding, the development of the calf, hamstring, quadriceps, and gluteus muscles critical to fast explosive movements are naturally developed in rural Jamaica as one goes about his daily business on the island’s steep hillsides. In addition, the fast downhill running, which may be generally developed by children, is effective in achieving the stride frequency so vitally important to sprinting success. In the same way one may argue that Kenya’s and Ethiopia’s high altitude flatlands may explain their success in distance events, likewise Jamaica’s rugged mountain terrain may contribute in some way to the development of certain athletic capabilities. My own casual observation is, while it is certain that the lifestyle associated with living and moving about actively in this environment will positively develop the desired characteristics, it is not sufficient to explain in any meaningful way the particular success of Jamaican athletes. In the same way, the popularity of children’s games such as Dandy Shandy, Stucky, and Mama Lashy—all requiring agility and fast explosive movements—must certainly enhance athletic capabilities but cannot by themselves sufficiently explain Jamaica’s athletic success. While these recreational games may not have a marked impact, it is clear, at least in the case of track and field, that organized training and competition at the high school level produces some of the world’s best junior athletes and many successful senior careers. 37
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In exploring the reasons for Jamaica’s athletic success, one must also put heavy weight on the work ethic, high threshold for pain and suffering, willingness to learn, and quickness to rise from defeat that characterizes the people, and thus their athletes. A Reason to Believe Cyclist David Weller has the distinction of being the only Jamaican athlete to have won an Olympic medal outside of the track-and-field disciplines. His bronze medal at the 1980 Moscow Olympics is the highlight of a fourteenyear career that spanned three Olympic Games. Weller placed eleventh at the Montreal Olympics in 1976 and sixth in the 1984 Los Angeles Games. David Weller’s achievement is significant in a number of respects, primarily the self-discipline, belief in one’s ability, tenacity, and steadfastness required to achieve such greatness in a sport normally not within the grasp of a Jamaican athlete. Notwithstanding the achievements of Jamaican cyclists over the years, particularly Xavier Miranda, the prospect of an Olympic medal must have seemed distant to the Jamaican sport fan and perhaps even to David himself. In a 1985 interview with the Daily Gleaner, Jamaican cyclist David Weller reflected: “I have fought the odds for so long—fourteen years. Do I continue to fight the odds, or do I focus on my career and consider sport a recreation? I have decided to give up competitive racing.” With these words Weller signaled his retirement. Yet his career as a
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Fire cyclist gave a group of athletes, assembled at the national stadium two years later to try out for a strange and distant sport, a reason to believe that Jamaicans could succeed in an Olympic discipline outside of track and field.
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Chapter 2 Ice A Games of Our Own At the age of twenty, William “Billy” Fiske drove the United States four-man bobsleigh team to victory at the 1932 Olympic Winter Games on the legendary Mount Van Hoevenberg track in Lake Placid. On his crew was one Edward Eagan along with Clifford Gray and Jay O’Brien. Both Fiske and Gray were already gold medalists, having been part of the victorious five-man team of 1928 in St. Moritz, Switzerland. Eagan also was a previous medalist but in a unique way; he had already won the gold medal in the light heavyweight boxing division at the 1920 Olympic Summer Games in Antwerp, Belgium, thus positioning himself in history as the only athlete to date to have won gold medals in both the Winter and Summer Games. Ulrich Salchow of Sweden has a unique distinction as the first person to win a gold medal for a winter sport at a
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Summer Games, when in 1908 he won the men’s figure skating title at the London Olympics. The inclusion of figure skating in the program of the fifth Olympiad was one of the first concrete steps toward the staging of a Winter Olympic Games. Like most worthwhile struggles for identity, the idea of staging a Winter Olympics suffered several early setbacks. Despite Sweden having taken all three figure skating medals in the men’s event in London, the sport was not included in the 1912 Summer Games in Stockholm. The 1916 Summer Games were planned for Berlin and arrangements were being put in place for the introduction of a “Skiing Olympia” in the Black Forest. However, the assassination of Duke Franz Ferdinand and his wife at Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, accelerated events in Europe leading to World War One and the cancellation of the 1916 Games. When the Summer Games resumed in 1920 in Antwerp, not only did figure skating make a return, but ice hockey was added as a medal event. Sweden once again dominated the figure skating event with Gillis Grafston and Magda Julin taking the male and female individual titles while the Finnish duo of Ludovika Jakobsson and Walter Jakobsson won the pairs event. In winning the ice hockey gold medal at these Games, Canada began a winning tradition of six gold medals in the first seven Games that the sport was contested, the only exception being a 1936 loss to Great Britain, though they may have taken some comfort in the fact that eight of the British players lived and played hockey in Canada.
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Ice When the French educator Baron Pierre de Coubertin had addressed a gathering of international sports leaders at the Sorbonne in Paris on June 23, 1894, he proposed the ancient Olympic Games, banned in 393 A.D. by the Roman emperor Theodosius I, be revived with a modern and international flavor, and, I imagine, without homage to the Greek god Zeus as was the practice of the event’s predecessors. His proposal was well received and within two years the first Games of the modern Olympiad were staged, appropriately, at the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens, Greece. The idea, though, of a Winter Games was resisted by the baron, supported by several Scandinavian countries who saw attempts at establishing a Winter Games as threatening their own Nordic championships, which they staged every four or so years from 1901 to 1926. In 1922, the French Olympic Committee decided to organize an International Winter Sports Week in Chamonix for 1924. The International Olympic Committee sanctioned the decision and the move for a Winter Olympic Games gained irreversible momentum. Sixteen nations and 258 athletes participated in the eleven-day event. Five sports: Nordic skiing, speed skating, figure skating, ice hockey, and bobsleighing were contested. As expected, the Scandinavians dominated all five sports. Norway finished at the top of the medal tables with four gold, seven silver, and six bronze medals. Finland finished second with four gold, three silver, and three bronze medals. Today, the 1924 International Winter Sports Week in Chamonix, France, is widely acknowledged by historians as the first Olympic Winter Games.
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From Business and Pleasure to Competitive Sport There is something in human nature compelling us to know just how good we are as individuals, how far, how fast, how long we can go. And perhaps more powerful is our need to know if and to prove we can do some task or execute some skill better than another. So it is natural that many of what we see today as fiercely contested sporting events had their beginning as either utility or recreational activities in people’s daily lives. Then, someone or some group absorbed by these natural drives decided to test the limits of performance, and thus sports and great competitions were conceived. The five sports contested in Chamonix are a product of the environment where they were developed. Cold and snow, work and recreation, machismo and drive all played a role in the structure and form of these sports. The nations that led the way in these sports were naturally those that could be described as “cold,” such as Norway and Sweden. Nothing in the environment of warm countries, such as Jamaica, could lead them to imagine these sports, let alone to participate in them. While summer sports were the purview of the world, winter sports were the purview of winter nations. Nordic Skiing Stone Age carvings suggest when ancient Egyptians were building the great pyramids, humans in the Arctic rim were traveling and hunting using skis—crudely made,
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Ice likely from animal bones or wood. This was perhaps fortyseven hundred years ago. The first evidence of skiing making the transition from transportation to sport is an Icelandic poem dating from around 1000 A.D. The poem alludes to skiing as a racing sport for aristocrats. While Sam Sharpe was contemplating his labor stoppage movement in Western Jamaica, and the prospect of freedom for the vast majority of Jamaicans seemed brighter than ever, Norwegians were already skiing for fun and recreation. In nearby Finland, as in Norway and throughout the Scandinavian region, skis are among the oldest pieces of equipment to be found. A variety of skis have been found in Finland’s peat bogs. One such bog site in Kinnula yielded skis that, using pollen dating of the peat, were determined to be approximately four thousand years old. Nordic skiing was, from prehistoric times until the late nineteenth century, an important mode of transportation in Scandinavia. Unlike its Alpine cousin with roots more in recreation than transportation, Nordic does not present the speed, risk, and need for specialized slopes. Nordic skiing also played an important role in exploration, skis and skiing being employed by Baron Adolf Erik Nordenskjöld during his navigation of the North-East Passage from the North Sea to the Pacific Ocean in 1878. Also, the written account of his trip across Greenland in 1888 on skis by the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen did much to popularize the use of skis across Europe. By the middle of the nineteenth century, Scandinavians had immigrated to the United States in marked numbers and established large communities in Minnesota. They retained their passion for skiing. It was not long before the popular45
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ity of skiing in this region spread to the Rocky Mountain States. By the 1880s, Nordic skiing attracted wide participation by those who enjoyed competitive skiing but more so for those who saw it as an excellent means of getting and remaining physically fit. As an aerobic activity, Nordic skiing develops the cardiovascular system particularly well and is very good at toning all the major muscle groups. Moreover, it can be enjoyed by young and old alike. As skiing for sport increased in popularity, the Norwegian Ski Association was formed in 1883. Among its early achievements was the staging of the first international ski competition near Christiania, now Oslo, in 1892, at the legendary Holmenkollen site. The use of special ski troops during World War One further advanced the ski discipline and served to spread expertise on ski equipment and technique. The continued use of ski troops through the years, particularly in Scandinavia, and the growing participation outside of the military in the biathlon event, led to its acceptance as an Olympic contest in Squaw Valley, 1960. Appropriately, Sweden’s Klas Lestander won the event. In 1924, before the staging of the Chamonix Games, the international governing body for skiing, the Fédération Internationale de Ski, was formed with its headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden. At the Chamonix Games, Nordic skiing events consisted of 18-kilometer and 50-kilometer cross-country ski races, ski jumping, and the Nordic combined event involving a ski jumping contest followed by a cross-country ski race. Since then, a number of related disciplines have been included such as ski orienteering and, as
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Ice mentioned, the biathlon. Collectively, the events are called Nordic Events. At the Games in Chamonix, Norway won all the Nordic skiing events with Thorleig Haug winning the 18-kilometer, 50-kilometer, and combined events, and teammate Jacob Thams winning the ski jumping. From 1924 to 1932, Nordic skiing dominated the Olympic Winter Games. It was not until the GarmischPartenkirchen Games in 1936 that alpine skiing was introduced at the Olympic level. At those Games, athletes from the host nation, Germany, won both the men’s and women’s events. The Germans had not missed out on the growth in the popularity of competitive skiing. Their first ski club was formed in 1890 and official ski competitions were held as early as 1896. Interestingly, during the 1952 Games in Oslo, women made their debut in a Nordic event with the inaugural staging of the women’s 10-kilometer cross-country race, won by Lydia Widerman of Finland. Speed Skating It is not surprising that the earliest records of the use of skates, like skis, also appear in Scandinavian literature around 200 A.D. Here again, the primary purpose was for transportation. The choice of skis or skates, I imagine, was primarily a function of whether snow or ice was to be traversed, skates, of course, being far more efficient on frozen lakes and similar surfaces. Skating was the major means of transport in the Netherlands during winter months. Most of this skating took place across Amsterdam’s frozen canals, as produce was moved to market, often on the heads of women. The Iroquois Indians of North America increased 47
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their efficiency in moving across frozen rivers while hunting deer, by strapping bones to their footwear. The earliest skates were, in fact, made from ribs or shinbones of elk, horse, and reindeers that were strapped to footwear made of animal skin. What we recognize as ice skates today, featuring metal blades, were likely first fashioned by a Scotsman in 1592. Recreational skating developed as either speed skating or figure skating and was, of course, to play a fundamental role in the development of ice hockey. The Dutch are believed to have raced on skates around the beginning of the seventeenth century, but the roots of the activity seem to be Scandinavian. In the March 18, 1878, issue of a London magazine, Charles Dickens wrote, “Scandinavia proper is the home of the skate, and it is from the hardy Norseman that the nations of England, Germany, Holland, and America have inherited the passion for skimming over the surface of frozen ponds and rivers.” Like so many winter sports, skating became one of the favorite recreational activities of Scandinavian royalty. Russia’s czar Alexander II is reputed to have taken lessons in St. Petersburg from the American Jackson Haines. By 1642 the first skating club was formed in Edinburgh, Scotland. Racing records date back to the 1700s including those from an organized competition in 1763, but it was not until one hundred years later in 1863, in Oslo, Norway, that the first official speed skating events were held. By the early 1800s the competitive version of speed skating had made its way to North America where it gained rapidly in
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Ice popularity and drew the attention of skate designers who introduced a longer, lighter, sharper steel blade in 1850. The first Speed Skating world championships was organized and staged by the Amsterdamsche Ijseclub in the Netherlands in 1889. Dutch, Russian, American, and English athletes participated in those contests and championships. The International Skating Union (ISU) was formed in the Netherlands in 1892. In addition to the five medals he won in 1924, Finland’s Clas Thunberg won two more in 1928. He may have added more but was part of a boycott of the 1932 Games protesting the decision by the organizers at Lake Placid to follow rules of pack-style competition, a tactic introduced by the Americans that proved most effective. Ivan Ballangrud of Norway also won seven medals during his career. East Germany’s Karin Kania-Enke is the most decorated Olympic speed skater winning eight medals over three Olympics. Still, perhaps the greatest achievement in Olympic history, including the Summer Games, belongs to speed skater Eric Heiden of Madison, Wisconsin, who won five gold medals: the 500-meter, 1,000-meter, 1,500-meter, 5,000meter, and 10,000-meter. In doing so, he set a world record for the 10,000-meter and Olympic records for each of the other events listed. Figure Skating What we now recognize as modern-day figure skating blossomed from a fusion of material and creativity of man. In 1850, E. W. Bushnell of Philadelphia introduced the first steel-bladed skates. This innovation accelerated the 49
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development of both competitive speed skating and figure skating. Just as the new skate design allowed the speed skater to go much faster, it allowed the figure skater to perform moves of complicated intricacies, fluidity, and acrobatic flavor. It is self-evident that the many jumps, twists, and turns, now such a routine part of modern-day figure skating, would not have been possible without the use of the steel blade. To demonstrate mastery, compulsory patterns or figures were introduced into competitive figure skating. Technical mastery of the skate is crucial for any figure skater, yet it is the grace and elegance of dancing on ice that makes figure skating what it is. Following the introduction of the steel blade by E. W. Bushnell, Jackson Haines, an American who had migrated to Vienna after the outbreak of the US Civil War in 1863, advanced the design of the skates by introducing a one-piece boot and blade that allowed for superior control of movement and balance. Skate design was, however, not Haines’s forte. His interest lay in movement and balance through the melding of ballet with skating. It was his success that gave birth to what we now recognize as figure skating. The first governing national body for figure skating was formed in 1879 in England. Here also, around this time, artificial ice conceptualized by a W. A. Parker and measuring a mere twenty-four feet by forty feet was developed for a skating competition. In 1882, Vienna hosted what may be regarded as the first international skating meet. In this competition, the athletes completed twenty-three compulsory figures plus a figure of
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Ice their own choosing, and then performed a four-minute freestyle routine. Small modifications to this format dominated the Olympic competition for years to come. At these championships Axel Paulsen first introduced the performance of jumps in a routine. To this day, the Axel Jump, as it has become known, is routinely performed in figure skating competition and is one of the defining elements of the sport. Interestingly, Axel finished third in this competition, which was won by the Austrian Leopold Frey. In 1892, the International Skating Body was formed and staged the first Figure Skating World Championships in St. Petersburg in 1897. Up until 1990, figure skaters had to trace set patterns on ice as part of their compulsory program using prescribed parts of the blade. The most popular figure was the figure eight. Judges ranked skaters on how well they traced the preset pattern. Points were deducted for straying from the pattern or for additional marks caused by striking the nonskating foot onto the ice. While this exercise may have been boring by modern-day competitive standards, it was a useful measure of technical skill. Still, not even technical competence can overcome the growing need to adjust sport to make it more “consumer” friendly and ultimately commercially viable. This is a fact of modern-day sport development and marketing. Hockey Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Persians, Romans, and Arabs all played stick and ball games with elements similar to what we now call hockey, whether field or ice. Stick and 51
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ball games were also played in the Middle Ages by Europeans, and in pre-Columbian times by native South Americans as well as by the Tainos of Jamaica. Hurling, which is related in its origins, is recorded as having been played in Ireland as early as the first century B.C. The sport as we know it today gets its name from the French word hoquet which means “shepherd’s crook.” The name was not widely used until the nineteenth century. Modern ice hockey was developed and refined in the mid 1850s by British soldiers stationed in Canada, and its rules were formalized by students of McGill University in 1879. By the late 1800s, the sport had spread to the United States, to Great Britain and on to the rest of Europe. Ice hockey became central to the 1924 International Sports Week and has been a mainstay of the Olympic Winter Games ever since. Indeed, ice hockey provided one of the most memorable moments in the history of sporting competitions in the 1980 Olympic Winter Games when the US team, seeded seventh out of twelve teams in the first round, went on to reach the final round with a 4-0-1 record. The team progressed to face a powerful and mature Soviet team that had only a week before the Olympics beat Team USA 10-3. Before electrified spectators, the young Americans defeated the Soviets by four goals to three and went on to beat Finland in the final by four goals to two. Bobsleigh As one travels around Europe and North America during winter months, it is easy to see and understand the genesis
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Ice of tobogganing and ultimately bobsleighing. Everywhere a snow-covered slope presents itself is a candidate for those who like to frolic in the snow. Wooden, plastic, and rubber sleds are everywhere to be seen: some homemade, some purchased, and many improvised, like the inner tubes of tires or the plastic cover of one’s garbage can. The attraction and thrill of shooting down a slope on snow one, two, three, four, five at a time remain as strong and ever present today as they were over a hundred years ago when the sport of bobsleigh began to take shape. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the popular wooden sleighs used for downhill sleighing in St. Moritz, Switzerland, were replaced by steel sleighs. This was a result of the handiwork, in 1889, of Major Bulpetts, a sleighing enthusiast and designer of the mother of all bobsleigh tracks, the St. Moritz Cresta run, and Christian Mathis, a local blacksmith from St. Moritz. The new sleigh design introduced a braking and steering system that in its fundamentals remains to this day. The new machinery was dubbed a “bob-sleigh” because the riders would bob back and forth in unison to get the sleigh moving downhill. Spurred by the new developments in sled technology, the appeal of bobsleigh skyrocketed. By the beginning of the twentieth century, there were over sixty runs in Switzerland alone, and many more sprang up as the popularity of the sport advanced across Austria, Romania, Germany, and into Italy. From its inception, the sport attracted the aristocracy and royalty who frequented ski resorts and possessed the wherewithal to purchase sleighs. When HSH Prince Albert of Monaco began his bobsleigh career in 1987, he represented the most recent in a 53
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long line of titled persons who have succumbed to the lure of bobsleigh, including, from the early days of the sport, the German Crown Prince Frederic William, to Lord Glentoran, Prince Michael of Kent (a cousin of Queen Elizabeth II), and Sir Andrew Ogilvie-Wedderburn of Great Britain, among many others. The early days of bobsleighing are more closely compared to what is literally described as “bob on the road” as opposed to Olympic-style bobsleigh. Up until 1969, bobsleigh races were held on what are called natural tracks—having advanced from bobsleighing on existing roadways—that had been excavated out of slopes and frozen naturally from wet compacted snow. This approach left the sport to the mercy of the elements and, in fact, many a competition had to be cancelled because it was not cold enough to freeze the tracks and keep them frozen throughout the competition. When the Koenigssee/Berchtesgaden track was built in Germany in 1969, the era of the artificial track was initiated. Such development, of course, reduced significantly the sport’s dependence on weather conditions but certainly did not eliminate it. Still at the heart of bobsleigh is the natural track, a sentiment endorsed by the FIBT, of which the first and most glorious, the St. Moritz Cresta Run, is today the only functional one in the world. There are now a dozen artificial tracks in nine countries used for international competition worldwide, concentrated in Germany with three and the USA with two. Delegates for skiing, skating, and ice hockey attended the French Olympic Committee’s congress of 1922 where the major agenda item was the staging of the 1924 Summer
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Ice Games in Paris. The winter sport delegates were, however, interested in discussing the proposed International Winter Sports Week. Bobsleigh had no formal representation, although it had the interest of the French. On November 23, 1923, the French founded the Fédération Internationale de Bobsleigh et de Tobogganing (FIBT) with the aim of organizing and preparing the sport for the 1924 Winter Sports Week. Comte Renaud de la Fregeoliere was elected president, a position he held until 1960. At the second congress of the FIBT in Chamonix on January 31, 1924, three days before the start of the International Winter Sports Week, the rules for the competition were finalized. Nations could enter either four- or five-man crews in a single competition, and competitors were allowed to race ventre a terre or headfirst down the track. Thirty-nine athletes from five nations entered the first bobsleighing events in the Olympic Winter Games. It was not until the 1932 Lake Placid Games that the now familiar two- and four-man events were contested. Bobsleigh has been a part of the Olympic Winter Games program for every Winter Olympiad since 1924 except the 1960 Games in Squaw Valley where delays caused by funding shortages and political maneuvering eventually led to the cancellation of the event. The most successful bobsleigh nations have been Germany and Switzerland led by Wolfgang Hoppe and Gustav Weder respectively. Hoppe has won thirty-three Olympic, world championship, and European championship medals and remains the standard by which driving mastery is measured. Weder won twentyfour medals in the same competitions. Comparing the two
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nations, Switzerland has won twenty-six Olympic medals and Germany thirteen. From its inception, the sport of bobsleigh benefited tremendously from the participation of gentlemen of means who had an appetite for the daring and dangerous. For years, the sport presented an aura of exclusivity, which at times threatened its Olympic status. The lack of broad participation in the sport was tolerable, perhaps even welcomed in some quarters for the first seven Olympiads, until the economics of the sport became an issue. Leading up to the 1960 Olympic Winter Games, the Squaw Valley Organizing Committee announced only Romania and the USA had expressed an interest in competing in bobsleigh and that at a cost of $750,000, it was just too expensive to construct a track for a two-nation competition. In reality, the FIBT president submitted a list of twelve nations prepared to participate. Regardless of how many nations would have actually competed in Squaw Valley, the concept of cost benefit in track construction was fully ventilated and remains an issue until this day. To assure Olympic participation in the 1980s, the FIBT had to demonstrate it had a minimum of twenty national members, up from seventeen before 1980. Subsequent to the 1988 Calgary Olympics, the issue of the exclusivity of bobsleigh has gradually diminished through the actions of daring fledging national federations and the visionary leadership of President Bob Storey of the FIBT. Long before Jamaica bobsleigh, the sport provided interesting characters for media consumption. William Mead Linley Fiske, at age sixteen, won the bobsleigh event in
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Ice 1928 with a five-man crew that included three members— Nion Tucker, Charles Mason, and Richard Parke— recruited shortly before the Games through an ad placed in the Paris edition of the New York Herald Tribune. Within approximately eighteen days of first sitting in a bobsleigh, they were all Olympic champions. None ever competed in bobsleigh again. Fiske himself embodied key characteristics of a bobsleigh driver. Fascinated by speed and machinery, he drove race cars and learned to fly airplanes. William Fiske died on August 17, 1940, at age twenty-nine as a result of trauma suffered while landing his Hurricane fighter plane—engulfed in flames—that was shot over the English Channel during the Battle of Britain. The spirit of William Fiske’s love for speed and his courage combined with superb athletic ability exemplifies the modern-day worldclass bobsledder. The introduction of limitations for total weight of the crew and sleighs in 1952, and the growing importance of the start, quickly transformed the sport to a finely balanced mix of technology, machinery, mental agility, and athletic prowess. The sport may now be described as “genetically mixing” Formula I racing with Olympic sprinting and the excitement of both squared.
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Part II Jamaica Bobsleigh
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Chapter 3 Fire on Ice Hope for the Beginning The Idea The idea for a Jamaican bobsleigh team was first conceived by George Fitch, an American businessman, who was spending extended periods of time in Jamaica while working on a project. Mr. Fitch had become friends with another American business executive, William Maloney, and thought he would be the ideal person to partner with to attempt to put together a bobsleigh team from Jamaica. It was George Fitch who formed the Jamaica Bobsleigh Federation and served as its first president. The story goes that while enjoying perhaps one drink of Appleton Rum too many in a Kingston nightclub, George introduced the idea of entering a bobsleigh team from Jamaica in the Calgary Olympics to William who accepted it readily. Having seen the local pushcart derby, noting its similarity with bobsled-
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ding, and recognizing the abundance of athletic talent in Jamaica, both gentlemen concluded what was not so obvious, that Jamaica and bobsledding were a natural fit. Supported by Michael Fennel, president of the Jamaica Olympic Association, the two gentlemen proceeded to put in place the elements of a dream that was destined to become a legend. Athletes The first challenge? Recruiting athletes for the program. After advertising in the local newspaper and tacking posters around Kingston, George was disappointed with the lack of interest. Despite the appeal of the opportunity to compete in the Olympic Games, the challenge of recruiting athletes for a strange and remote sport proved formidable. I can only imagine that at the time, the posters put up around town may as well have been in Swahili because the word bobsleigh was far removed from the Jamaican vocabulary, and the word Olympics brought up images of Herb McKenley, Donald Quarrie, and Merlene Ottey in track and field, not ice and snow. Concerned the idea may be a nonstarter if he could not even get athletes curious about the sport, George turned away from volunteerism to, as it turns out, a source that had proved the stable supplier of athletes for bobsleigh programs around the world, particularly Europe. The role of Colonel Ken Barnes of the Jamaica Defense Force in the formation of the Jamaica Bobsleigh Team has been largely obscure. But Colonel Barnes stood at a juncture where he could either make or
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Fire on Ice Hope for the Beginning break the fledgling program, where he could believe in the idea or laugh and condemn it to history’s trash heap of wacky ideas. Because he believed, Jamaica Bobsleigh was given a chance. When George Fitch walked into Colonel Barnes’s office to pitch the idea of recruiting Jamaica Defense Force (JDF) athletes to try the sport, he was pleasantly surprised to find he did not have to spend the entire meeting explaining why. Colonel Barnes, who maintained a deep interest in sport including following the budding career of his son, famed English soccer player John Barnes, was reluctant to dismiss the idea without first understanding the sport and what it needed to succeed. After an initial explanation of the nature of the sport, the conversation turned to athlete selection. For this, Colonel Barnes sent for one Major George Taylor who was familiar with the JDF sports program and its athletes. The three men sat to discuss the matter. “Exactly what kind of athlete do you want?” inquired Colonel Barnes. “Well,” Fitch began, “the start is very important to the sport—that is how fast you can push the sled. I understand strong sprinters make good raw material for great bobsleigh pushers.” The Colonel turned to Major Taylor: “Who do we have like that?” “Well, we have Michael White, our 100-meter sprint champion; he is fast but not particularly strong. Then we have Devon Harris who runs the 800-meter. He is strong, not particularly fast,” was the Major’s response.
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“Send both of them,” the Colonel instructed. He then turned to George and asked, “What else?” George began again: “The driver is very important. He has to be a team leader, courageous, with good athletic abilities and excellent eye-hand coordination.” This time Colonel Barnes did not consult Major Taylor. Instead he gave a further order: “Send Captain Stokes.” In addition to these athletes, several other civilian athletes would eventually show up at the trials including Samuel Clayton, an engineer with the Jamaica Railway Corporation and whose “beer belly” would have recommended him for the sport in another era, and Freddie Powell who reputedly rode his bicycle forty miles over some of the island’s most intimidating mountains to attend the trials. All told, over forty athletes showed up for the trials, held over a two-day period, from September 9-11, 1987, at the National Stadium in Kingston, Jamaica. Through George’s initiation, the US Bobsleigh Federation had agreed to send experts to assist in the athlete selection process. The trials consisted of a series of sprints and jumps designed to measure each athlete’s speed and explosive strength capabilities, so crucial to the sport. The Americans also sent a number of videotapes about the sport including one featuring bobsleigh crashes set to music from the movie Top Gun. After the physical events were done at the trials, George Fitch gave an introductory talk on the sport to a hall full of curious and hopeful young athletes. He then proceeded to turn off the lights to show a video clip on the sport, which had a few crashes—some of them quite frightening. When
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Fire on Ice Hope for the Beginning the lights came back on, George found himself standing in an almost empty hall. Desire turned to dread and men fled. The organizers’ determination to go on despite this early setback was to come to characterize Jamaica bobsleigh. Of the athletes who wished to continue after the showing of the video, Dudley Stokes, Michael White, Devon Harris, Samuel Clayton, and Freddie Powell were selected to prepare for the 1988 Games. Caswell Allen was to join the team later. Off the Deep End Funded by George Fitch and the Jamaica Tourist Board, the athletes embarked on a “crash” course in bobsledding. The comfort of running and weight training in Jamaica was soon destroyed with the harsh realities of bobsled training in Lake Placid, New York. The pain of the New York winter was eased by the warm presence of the beautiful Cathy Levy who was Miss Jamaica World and fourth place finisher in the Miss World Competition in 1983. Cathy was instrumental in the creation of publicity surrounding the image of Jamaica bobsleigh. The team practiced running on ice at a local rink in Lake Placid but did not actually get into a sled until they moved on to Calgary. There, Dudley Stokes, confirmed as the driver for the team based on his exceptional concentration and experience piloting helicopters, got his first ride in a bobsleigh sitting in the driver’s seat. All he recalls of his first run from the Damen’s or women’s start was looking
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around at the ice flashing by him and thinking to himself: Okay, this is nice. It also gave him a sense of déjà vu. For the previous twenty years, he had been awakened periodically by dreams of going down this long, white chute in a tubular machine—as he finished that first run in Calgary, he knew he had found his destiny. Training in Calgary went well and the team had reason to be optimistic. Perhaps this was not as hard as they thought. George decided the time had come to hire a national bobsleigh coach. Again leaning on the advice of the Americans, George retained the services of Howard Siler as Jamaica’s first coach. Siler had the distinction of being one of the USA’s leading two-man drivers during his career as an athlete. The terms of Siler’s retention are indicative of George’s approach to compensation, i.e. the better you do, the more you get. Siler wanted US $30,000 to do the job. George instead negotiated a performance-based arrangement that paid US $5,000 as a flat fee plus two trips to Jamaica. In addition, Siler would receive US $2,000 for every team that Jamaica beat at the Olympics. It was not the last time that George would use the allure of trips to Jamaica to benefit the team. The team was welcomed with open arms when they first arrived in Calgary, and everyone was enthralled and embraced this dichotomy called Jamaica Bobsleigh. Nevertheless, the team was not immune to the politics of international bobsleigh competition and, in particular, the attempt by home nations to restrict access to Olympic tracks before the Games. While some token access would be offered and international access was to become expected, host nations
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Fire on Ice Hope for the Beginning reserved, naturally, the high frequency of access to the track for their national teams. We had worn out our welcome in Calgary. Despite the evidently innocuous nature of the Jamaica Bobsleigh Team to the world order of bobsleigh, objections came from some quarters that our access to the track provided us with an unfair advantage. This we found premature since we were celebrating our survival through our second month in the sport. Still the team moved on to Innsbruck, Austria, where it took up residence at the local sports center, the Landesportheim, and planned on getting additional practice at the Olympic track in Igls, a short drive up the hill from Innsbruck. Already funds were running low. Georges’s wife had noticed he was making a habit of dipping into the family savings to fund the team. This had to stop and he knew it. Any hope of continuing this habit just a little longer was dashed when the October 19, 1987, stock market crash significantly reduced the value of George’s portfolio of investments. He had to do what he refers to as a “gut check.” Did he still want to do this? The answer was yes. Times were trying but he had a team on the road operating in less than favorable circumstances. For example, the coach and his five athletes jammed themselves into a Fiat Panda, enduring the daily trip up to the track. It was at this point that George accelerated the use of a fund-raising technique that was to become a hallmark of the team through the Games—T-shirt sales. P. C. Harris, a talented graphic artist and advertising professional, had been recruited by George to assist with the bobsleigh program.
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His first task was to design the poster that advertised the trials. P. C. was to go on to design many T-shirts for the team, but George’s wife, Patricia, designed the most famous of the time. Her design featured a sled coming down the side of a mountain with palm trees, locks flowing from beneath the helmet of the brakeman. Caption for the image read: Jamaica Bobsleigh—The Hottest Thing On Ice. The Jamaica T-shirt manufacturer, Sun Island, made five hundred of these shirts and sent them off to Igls. On the first weekend of receiving the shirts, three hundred were sold with Prince Albert of Monaco buying fifty. The prince’s fondness for the team was to prove very helpful. Sales of those T-shirts in Igls literally provided the meals for that day. In the meantime, George pursued more conventional sponsorship opportunities with Mercedes Benz and a number of beer companies but with no immediate success. At this time the team was fortunate enough to benefit from the generously provided services of a Tyrolean customs agent Sepp Haidacher who, in addition to being a martial artist, was also a bobsledder and a coach for the Taiwanese bobsleigh team. The Panda situation was relieved when Sepp secured a minivan for our use. We were grateful. It was the beginning of a relationship that has lasted through the years. The training continued to progress well. The two twoman teams in training were Dudley and Michael, and Sammy as driver with Devon as brakeman. Freddie seemed out of place from the moment he arrived in Igls. Accus-
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Fire on Ice Hope for the Beginning tomed to the use of chains only in the situation when someone was trying to protect his property from being stolen, upon seeing the snow chains on car tires, his comment was, “a so dem people tief.” George explained that the chains were to assist with the traction of the tires and were not for protection against thieves. Freddie had also developed the habit of clinging close to the heater in the start house as opposed to participating actively in the sport. Soon, however, Freddie found his niche by playing the stereotypical Jamaican and perfecting the knack of selling T-shirts. The people loved him. He occupied himself with that. Sammy was the first to show signs of breaking. His driving was going very well but he seemed to lack focus. On one occasion he demonstrated to everyone’s amazement what was possible through the pure laws of physics. He entered the big 360-degree turn at Igls, corner eight, frontfirst as is expected but managed to exit backward, and he completed the run by looking behind him over his shoulders for the remaining five turns. The feat was impressive but not what was required at the Olympic level. When he started to call his dad in Jamaica, complaining about the difficult circumstances he found in training with the team, George decided that he did not have what it took to make it. Dudley, Michael, and Devon demonstrated a high degree of commitment and were to form the backbone of the team. By the time the team returned to Jamaica for the Christmas break, hopes were high it could actually compete successfully in the sport. Still, the real tests lay ahead. The first stop after the Christmas break was back at Lake Placid.
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This time the track was open and available. The team would slide there. While the Calgary and Igls tracks were short and forgiving, the Lake Placid track was long and punishing. Before being upgraded on two occasions, the track was, in 1987, one of the few in the world that filled the hearts of the most experienced sliders with fear. It was designed at a time when much slower sleds would be raced and even then it was a perilous undertaking. Now, with the sleeker faster sleds in use, the possibility of getting hurt, and seriously, was very high. While the start houses at most other tracks in the world are a cauldron of chatter, interaction, and preparation, the start house at Lake Placid was known as a place for quiet reflection. Learning this track was difficult and painful. The two-man team crashed three consecutive times in the second corner but flipped back onto the runners in the notorious Shady corner and finished the run on each occasion. The degree of difficulty increased substantially when the coach decided to try the four-man sled for the first time. The team only had access to poor equipment, and, although it did not crash, the sled slammed into the finish curve at over eighty miles per hour, shattering the chassis and the crew’s confidence. George had to pay for the sled repairs himself. No more efforts were made at the four-man event and up to entering the Olympic Games, the question of whether or not we would compete in the four-man was an open one.
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Fire on Ice Hope for the Beginning Official Objection Weeks before the Olympic Games, the president of the Jamaica Olympic Association, Mike Fennel, received a communiqué from the International Olympic Committee stating the Jamaican Bobsleigh Team would not be allowed to compete in the 1988 Games. By January 1988, the team began to receive substantial attention from the North American media. The angle was predictable—Jamaica bobsleigh, what a laugh—except for People magazine, which covered the team in the fairest fashion we had seen until that time. This attitude of the media did little to help the team in its struggle to be recognized by the FIBT. Where, in true Jamaican style, the team expected a warm greeting and welcome from the FIBT, instead it found cold shoulders and stony faces. George was taken aback and he took time contemplating his next move. Before getting too deep in the project, he had done his research regarding the Olympic qualification requirements, and he knew for sure that approval from the local Olympic committee met all requirements. Over the months of preparing for the Games, George had made a personal commitment not to enter a team unless it could beat a fair number of competitors. Jamaica Olympic Association President Mike Fennel, while an avid advocate of the right for participation in the Games, was not about to do so at any cost, especially if risking compromising the fine Olympic tradition of the nation. However, he knew of George’s commitment to not only compete but to compete well. He was comfortable with this
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and gave the Jamaica Olympic Association’s approval to the bobsleigh team to enter the Games. Armed with JOA support, and citing the specific requirements from the FIBT rule book, George enlisted the enthusiastic support of Prince Albert of Monaco, a Jamaica bobsleigh fan, who himself was preparing to compete in Calgary in his first Olympic Games. Prince Albert was well known and respected in IOC circles and, in fact, in 1989, he was to be appointed to the Athlete’s Commission, a body for which he now serves as vice chairman. He lobbied the IOC on our behalf to withdraw any objection to Jamaica’s participation. The effort was successful, but President Kotter of the FIBT never supported the participation of Jamaica in bobsleigh throughout his presidency. Nevertheless, Jamaica was free to enter the 1988 Olympic Winter Games. Entering the Games Funding remained a problem and in January 1988, the team participated in fund-raising events in New York and Toronto that were not financially successful yet endeared the team to Jamaican and Caribbean fans. Determined, the Jamaica Bobsleigh Federation succeeded in entering both a two-man and four-man team in the twenty-fifth Olympic Winter Games held in Calgary, Alberta, in 1988. Jamaica entered the Games with five athletes: Dudley, Devon, Michael, Freddie, and Caswell Allen. The popularity of the team was widespread, based on grassroots support from those who favored the unusual and the underdog. The
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Fire on Ice Hope for the Beginning roar for the team at the opening ceremonies was fanatical and inspiring. Supporters around the world formed the team into their own conceptions, a popular one being that the team was made up of dreadlocked, fearless, semi-athletes out to conquer Babylon. The team in the meantime was caught off guard by its popularity. T-shirts and sweatshirts were now being sold by the box load, and the team’s song “Hobbin’ and a-Bobbin’,” produced by P. C. Harris, was heard everywhere. We went to the Olympics with one T-shirt design. In a short time, imitation shirts of eight different designs were popping up all over Calgary. By the time we were able to press our rights to the property, the illegal operators had already made their money and skipped town. The task of public relations and sales fell to Freddie Powell who adopted this role naturally. He was soft-spoken, kind, bearded and a reggae singer, ideal for public consumption. The team’s popularity was shared with British ski jumper Eddie the Eagle who, despite his clear incompetence, was adored by the crowds. We saw him and silently hoped that we were not being cheered for the same reason—that of being, well, ridiculous. Eddie did get an invitation to the Johnny Carson show, a privilege that we were never accorded. Competition and Fame While the public hysteria over the team mushroomed, the matter of the Olympic competition remained fixed in the minds of the athletes. First on the schedule was the two-
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man competition. The team arrived in Calgary without a sled and had to buy a two-man from the Americans for the competition. Coach Siler did not seem particularly keen on the team’s performance from the beginning and was hardly around. Driver Dudley Stokes and brakeman Michael White were entered for that competition. While Dudley had used Devon as his brakeman up to the Games, he decided, based on present performance, to go with Michael. Devon was not particularly pleased, and it became one of the first moments of tension contributing to a strained relationship between these two over the next ten years. At the start of each heat for Jamaica, the crowd would burst into cheers and continue as the team sailed down the track. It was exhilarating and the height of greatest entertainment at the bobsleigh track. Our first experience of the on-track politics of bobsleigh came when, during the third run of the race, a windstorm sprayed the track with dust, slowing it down significantly. Our team had already made their descent when this occurred and ended up in sixteenth position, ahead of many leading teams including the eventual silver medalist Wolfgang Hoppe of the DDR. The run was cancelled by the authorities to restore their perceived proper order of things. (Ten years later in Nagano when a similar event occurred, but to our disadvantage, we were unable to have the run cancelled.) After four runs, we placed thirty-fifth. We met one of George’s criteria by beating ten teams in the competition. Relieved by actually doing, at least in part, what the team set out to do, the mood in the camp relaxed and the
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Fire on Ice Hope for the Beginning decision was made to enter the four-man competition. As history would have it, the US Olympic hockey team was eliminated earlier than the US media would have liked, which left it with unfilled airtime and nothing for consumption by the US viewing public. It needed something exciting, different, nonthreatening, and entertaining. Jamaica Bobsleigh fit the bill. With the full attention of the American media, the popularity of the team reached its zenith. Team members abandoned any plans of walking around outside the Olympic Village for fear of being mobbed. Requests for appearances, mail, and phone calls all became unmanageable. We were in the midst of a phenomenon that the best public relations agencies could not produce, and we could not control. Still, the focus of the athletes remained intense. Party Having decided to enter the four-man competition, the team needed a sled. George heard of one owned by the Canadians, approached them, and offered Can $5,000 for the sled. They would not take less than Can $25,000. We were making money from T-shirts but not that much at the time. Although J. Wray and Nephew, one of the world’s leading spirit companies, came on board with a sponsorship from its famous Appleton Rum brand, the immediate need was beyond our resources. We needed to raise more funds. George’s solution was simple: “Let’s have a party.” The Orestes nightclub agreed to host the party, and it was a phenomenal success. Lines into the party extended
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far around the block. The crowd was treated to a rendition of the song “Hobbin’ and a-Bobbin’” by the team members. They loved it. Freddie, feeling the moment, snatched the mike on stage and proceeded to give a rendition of “A Whiter Shade of Pale” with a country intonation. The fact that here was a Jamaican bobsleigher singing a country version of a pop song was difficult enough to assimilate, but the off-key performance was too much to bear. The performance bombed and the party was under threat. Sensing the moment, Freddie recovered and then broke out into a masterful performance of Bob Marley’s “Stir It Up” which got the crowd in the groove for the rest of the night. The next morning, George bought our four-man sled for Can $25,000 in cash. Small Slopes and Big Hopes Looking down the snow-covered slope brought out nothing but anticipation and pent-up exhilaration in me. My only concerns were: first, how I would fit on the plastic sled, and second, how I would make sure to steer clear of the trees at the bottom of the slope. I had been to that spot before searching for my golf ball, as I would predictably hook it to the left off the first tee at the University of Idaho golf course. The course had been closed to golfing and, following a heavy snowfall, served as the winter playground for Moscow families. I had been invited to go sledding by Ralph Freimuth, a soft-spoken, thickly mustached colleague from my workplace, Northwest River Supplies, a white-water equipment
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Fire on Ice Hope for the Beginning supply company in Moscow, Idaho. My college advisor who owned the company had given me a job there. Ralph mentored me through a difficult cultural and business transition, and I became a good family friend. He and his wife Linda were always gracious, so it was easy for me to accept his invitation although I was not sure what to expect. While Dudley, Michael, Devon, and Freddie were being beaten up on the Lake Placid track, I was enjoying my first experience tobogganing on the powder-puff slopes of a golf course. One month later, as I stood at the starting line of the Olympic Games four-man, training with these seasoned sledders, I wondered if I could make the transition from my innocuous fun-filled start to sledding to the rough-riding world so typical of Olympic bobsleighing. Through struggle and a crisis of confidence, the answer proved to be painfully yes. When I returned from the Calgary Olympics, I brought back with me a Jamaica Bobsleigh poster signed by all four members of the team for Ralph. He could not possibly have known how that small start would help me to become an Olympian, but I hope he continues to appreciate that small token to this day. In June 1988, I went white-water rafting with Ralph and his family on the north fork of the Salmon River. It was my first time rafting, and I insisted on getting into a kayak to enjoy the full rush of the river. Later that night as we sat at the campfire, Ralph said he was amazed at how I just took on the kayak and did so well. Most people, he said, would have been afraid to get into one without months of practice.
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Before the Olympics I would have been afraid, too, but after, I was a changed man. I had watched the opening ceremonies for the Calgary Games from the comfort of my studio apartment. The pride I felt as I watched my brother walking into the stadium carrying the Jamaican national flag is indescribable. I listened keenly but could not believe what I heard—the spectators were going wild for the team. Wow, these guys are real stars, I thought. The following week I continued my training for the 1988 Seoul Olympics that included a major indoor competition that Friday. I was on a high from knowing my brother was at the Olympics, albeit the winter version. People would ask me about the team wherever I would go, but I did not know much except for the little I had garnered from the newspaper clipping Tal had sent. As soon as practice was over, I would rush home to catch up on the day’s events at the Games. The Wednesday evening of the first week of the Games I got a phone call. It was Tal. I was so pleased to hear from him and thought it so nice of him to take time out of his very busy period to catch up with me. I was excited to hear from him but he sounded reflective. “Is everything okay?” I asked. “I need you to come up,” he replied, almost sternly. He would not have asked if he did not really need me there. I was unclear as to his intentions, and my own athletic ambitions gave me reason to pause before answering. Before I could answer, he continued: “Bring your spikes.” I accepted I was going to Calgary. The following day I did my weight training workout earlier than usual so I would have time to travel to Spokane,
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Fire on Ice Hope for the Beginning Washington, to catch my flight to Calgary. As I left the gym, I ran into my old friend Trond Knaplund, an outstanding decathlete, who was about to begin his own routine. “Where are you going?” “To the Olympics!” I told him. As I sat at the departure gate in Spokane, I heard a page for me to take a call. It was from a local journalist who had heard I was going to Calgary to compete in the Games and wanted me to confirm this. “I am going to help out and learn about the sport,” was my response. “Are you going to compete?” he asked further. My simple answer was “No.” This was my feeling at the time, and I often wonder what the journalist thought when he saw me pushing the sled down the hill in the Olympic race some days later. George picked me up at the airport and took me to stay with a host family. The following day he drove me to the Olympic accreditation center. “This is the athlete I was telling you about,” he said to a gentleman who looked at me with great suspicion before waving us on. The hall was large with rows and rows of booths and cameras used to produce accreditation for most athletes prior to the start of the Games. By this time, of course, the facility had served much of its use and the volunteers operating the center were relaxed and chatting. I filled out a form, stood for my picture, and within minutes I was an accredited Olympic athlete.
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On the way to the Olympic Village, George murmured something about that whole exercise costing him two trips to Jamaica. I did not pursue the matter. After I became accredited, Pat Brown, one of the US coaches who had been working with the team since its second training stint in Lake Placid, took me to one of our clothing sponsors, Sprung. While there, I was asked by one of its employees what I did for a living. “I’m a professional speedster,” I replied half in jest. Pat heard my response and pulled me aside. “You’re an Olympic athlete, not a professional,” he cautioned. I had a new appreciation of the concern over amateurism in the Olympic movement, which all seemed so trivial four years later as I watched Hershel Walker, a professional football player, push for the Americans at the La Plagne Games. Things were changing even before I absorbed it fully. Upon arrival at the entrance to the Olympic Village, I saw Tal across from the airport-style security and X-ray machines. A big grin broke out on my face. He too was smiling. That was good. Upon clearing security, I walked briskly over to shake his hand (we were never in the habit of hugging and have only done so in the context of our bobsleigh achievements). He shook my hand then stuck out his right foot. “I’m a star, man—care for the honor of cleaning my shoes?” I laughed and punched him in the chest—a little. It would soon become clear to me that we were all stars. Tal and I left the security area and walked to our assigned room through underground tunnels on the Univer-
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Fire on Ice Hope for the Beginning sity of Calgary campus which spared us the pain of trudging outside through the snow. In fact, over the coming days, I became thoroughly impressed with the spacious, clean facilities of the Olympic Village. I was particularly impressed with the medical and athletic treatment facilities, which were to become quite familiar to me in the days leading up to the four-man competition. I enjoyed very much the Olympic Village, especially the chance of seeing the gorgeous Katarina Witt whom it remains one of my life’s ambitions to meet. We walked past George’s room which had a life-sized portrait of Bob Marley painted on canvas hanging from the wall. Tal brought me up to date on all the happenings and kept saying, “You’re gonna love this sport.” I still had not wholly accepted the idea that I might well be racing in a bobsleigh very soon. The atmosphere was electric, and I decided to take the train downtown to soak up the Olympic spirit. As I put on my newly provided Jamaica Bobsleigh jacket, Tal said, “Don’t wear that.” “I’m cold and it’s a nice jacket,” I said as I left the room. Within a minute of stepping off the train downtown, I was mobbed by people wanting autographs from a member of the world-famous Jamaica Bobsleigh Team. I was reluctant at first but thought better of it as the crowds got more boisterous. I could not walk a step without being grabbed, felt, and kissed. I tried to remain calm but I was bordering on panic. Within fifteen minutes of getting off the train, I was back on heading to the village. When I got back Tal was sleeping, and we never discussed the wisdom of wearing
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the jacket in public again. Still, the thing that impressed me most was the warmth of our Canadian hosts. I promised several of them that I would return the following June to attend the Calgary Stampede, but as “way leads on to way,” fourteen years later I’ve yet to keep the promise. That weekend I watched the two-man competition. Everywhere, there were shouts and cheers for the Jamaica team, while impromptu versions of “Hobbin’ and aBobbin’” filled the air. Next up: the four-man.
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Chapter 4 Fire on Ice Fear for the End Burning Ice Two days after the two-man race, I went with the team to the start practice track to observe the training and perhaps try a push or two myself. Tal insisted I take a more active role and made it clear he wanted me to race. The race was five days away, and I was touching a bobsleigh for the first time in my life. This challenge was to strain our relationship and change my life. Before my first practice run in the four-man, I looked around the start house and starting area and wondered why all the pushers were padding their elbows, shoulders, and the inside of the sled. I thought it was kind of wussy and declined an offer of a piece of sponge from Michael. By the fourth corner of the run, I wished I hadn’t. Going upward of seventy miles per hour with steel running on ice and no suspension proved painful. The multiplying effect on my
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weight caused by the centrifugal forces in the corners made the screw at the back of my seat feel like someone was driving a metal stake through my sacrum. The gentle rest of the sled’s edge on my shoulder felt like someone was banging on me with a four-by-four plank, left and right depending on the corner being negotiated. The next day, my preparation included half an hour strapping on the padding I’d collected from athletes around the village that night. Things went wrong from the beginning in the four-man event. On the first run, the push bar of the worn sled collapsed while driver Dudley Stokes was at full speed running downhill. That he made it into the sled was an athletic feat unto itself. On the second run, Michael White had trouble sitting in the sled and was in an almost erect posture well into the first turn of the run. Then there was the ongoing problem of Devon looking over Dudley’s shoulder as he drove down the track, which proved very distracting. Devon’s ambition was to drive but his time had not yet come; he would best serve the team now by keeping his head down. Tal was never satisfied with how well Devon stuck to and played his role. All I had to do was “hit” the sled at the same time with the rest of the team, push hard, run fast, get into the sled “like a thief,” as I was advised by my British friends, and make sure the push bars came down properly which I did by banging on a release latch inside the sled and then again on top of the bars as they creaked into their rusty sockets. This I was able to do without incident. Today’s sled designs have eliminated the need for that particular function.
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Fire on Ice Fear for the End The first day of competition ended with the first two runs. We had gone to the top; we had made it to the bottom. The fans were happy and the media had their fun. Yet, we spent the night reflecting on how we could improve for the next day. There was no more time for theory. All that mattered now was to do what we knew how to and to execute under pressure. The second day of competition was bright and sunny; the team arrived at the track focused and energetic. Again, the fragile optimism was soon dashed. Tal fell on his walk up the track and immobilized his left shoulder; determined to go on, he applied some cold spray to ease the pain and walked to the starting line, only to be told that the national team coach had that morning left the Games and would not be with us for the rest of the race. Tal did not share this information with the rest of the team, trying to keep things together. We learned later that our coach said he had to return to work. Whatever the reason for leaving, his action was a body blow to Tal’s confidence. In front of millions of people, the team was at that moment at its loneliest. With only seconds to focus, the team came together and with a collective energy committed itself to go forward, to finish the job. In an inspired moment, the team started off the hill in the seventh fastest time for all competitors. Achieving speeds previously unattained, Tal lost control of the sled coming out of the Kreisel, a huge 365-plus degree turn on the track, and at approximately 85 miles per hour, the sled rose steeply at the end of the curve, ran out of ice, and fell like a boulder from its pinnacle.
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We crashed, pinning the driver’s head against the inside wall and creating an echo that was heard around the world. George saw the crash on the big screen at the track and began running down to the finish curve. He pondered on his way how he would tell so many mothers he had killed their sons. As the sled ground to a halt I saw a trail of red against the side of the track. My first thought was that it was blood, that it was Tal’s blood, but it turned out to be paint from someone’s helmet. As I dragged myself from the sled I heard Tal’s voice calling me—“Chris, Chris!” It was the first time he had spoken to me in four days. As I stood, he looked at me and we almost hugged. The track crew was on the scene almost immediately and took control of the sled. I could make out George forcing his way through the crowd, asking if we were okay. I nodded; he was visibly relieved. The walk up the braking stretch—perhaps only a hundred meters or so—felt like miles. I took off my helmet and hung my head as my spikes crunched through the snow on the way up the straight. I noticed Devon waving to the crowd and smiling and I wondered why he felt so happy. I snapped out of my reflection and realized the spectators were still cheering. The feeling was bittersweet. I appreciated the support in the Olympic spirit, but we crashed and I am by nature intra-punitive. Devon and Michael were okay, but the doctors wanted my shoulder checked out and Tal’s neck to be x-rayed. We were both taken by ambulance to the local hospital. Over the next twelve years we would spend many desolate moments together but none quite as dark as that one. Tal’s Xrays showed no serious damage, but his neck would be stiff
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Fire on Ice Fear for the End for a while. My shoulder, except for a few ice burns, proved fine. Later that evening as we watched the crash on TV, I could not help but think of the sheer horror my mother must have felt knowing her two sons were in that sled. So close to doing what could not be done, the team did what the cynics expected. Crashed at the big show. The FIBT establishment was vindicated; they said that Jamaica was not prepared for the Olympics and the team proved them right. The media cast the team as jokers and “Sunday Sledders.” It was fun while it lasted. The time had come for our sideshow to make room for the real sledders. As I awaited the boarding of my flight back to Spokane, I rested my helmet in my lap and cried. For the first time, all the emotions of the previous seven days overwhelmed me. Visionary William Maloney obtained his Olympic experience by becoming a member of the Jamaican delegation, which marched in the opening ceremonies. His brother Tom Maloney, a travel consultant from Seattle, who had assisted the program making complex travel arrangements, has remained actively involved in the team’s travel logistics. George, however, had a problem in that he had invested US $90,000 in the project and needed to make it back, if possible. This was the motivation for the successful attempt to get the movie Cool Runnings made. After the Games, we were recognized as celebrities and found ourselves in all sorts of famous places with famous people. On one such occasion, we were invited by Jerry
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Buss to a Lakers game, which we gladly accepted. While waiting for George on the steps of the Los Angeles coliseum, we saw Mike Tyson walking around. We wondered if we should go up and ask for his autograph but were uncertain. The first time I tried to approach him, I was interrupted by actor Lou Gossett who said hello to Tyson and asked him to give his best to Robin, then headed in to the game. I walked up to Tyson and the rest of the team followed closely. We explained we were members of the Jamaican Bobsleigh Team and were here for the game. He seemed excited to meet us, explained that he was here to watch Ralph Samson of the Houston Rockets, his favorite basketball player, then kept saying, “What do you know, niggers on ice, niggers on ice.” The conversation did not deepen. We all got his autograph and thanked him profusely. The residual popularity of the team gave us hope we would be able to fund the team into the future. One such opportunity came from Miller Lite that was running a series of commercials featuring past athletes. They were keenly interested in including Jamaica Bobsleigh in the campaign. Perhaps they thought surely we were all ex-athletes at that time. Still, the task of acting in the commercial fell to Freddie, naturally. George had come to an agreement with Freddie before the commercial was shot that he would get twenty percent of the fee and the Federation eighty percent. With this kind of arrangement and a little luck we could look forward to funding the program in the coming years. As Freddie and George stood on a Miami beach moments before the shooting for the commercial was sched-
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Fire on Ice Fear for the End uled to begin, Freddie said calmly, “I want eighty percent of the fee or I am not doing this.” George could not believe his ears. He thought Freddie might have been joking. But he was serious. Eighty percent or he was walking. “What about the team?” George fumed. “We are here because of the efforts of other athletes.” “I have children to send to school,” Freddie retorted. “Where, Switzerland?” George asked. Freddie held out for eighty percent of the fee and we lost faith in our ability to fund the program from such opportunities. The end of Jamaica Bobsleigh was in sight; our fifteen minutes were up.
Wilderness Years Confronted with facts, figures, and arguments all pointing in the direction of quitting, the team rededicated itself to continue competing. Team members saw themselves as athletes, not showmen. It was this spirit that sustained the team through the wilderness years from 1988 to 1993. It was not difficult to persuade George Fitch to stay on because, as he said, he found traveling to exotic places around Europe exciting. He stayed on and continued to give invaluable support through the 1992 Games, and indeed until today. During this period the program was unfocused and without clear leadership. A flood of athletes joined the team but improved performance was not forthcoming. Many things form a part of bobsleighing, some good and some bad. We seemed to have caught on more easily to some of the bad things than some of the good things. Tal and I in particular had slipped into the habit of staying out late 89
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drinking. This presented little difficulty to Tal because of his experience gained through the military in this matter. I proved not quite as good, but I was grateful for my college experience of playing quarters—where up to half a dozen of us would sit around a table and attempt to bounce a quarter off the table into a pitcher of beer. If you missed, you had to take a drink. I missed and hence drank often. This prepared my system to consume vast quantities of alcohol and still rise to perform the next day. It was during this time that I learned from Tal the technique of drinking tomato juice during the course of the night to prevent dehydration and its exacerbating effects on a hangover. We were off track. Preparation for the 1992 La Plagne Games focused on Igls where we again stayed at the Landesportheim. Our coach was a former British bobsleigher named Pete Brugnani who had the distinction of holding a PhD in mathematics. By the time Tal entered the training camp in Innsbruck, his frustration level was very high. During the season Devon had begun driving and the thin resources of the team were now stretched over two drivers instead of one. Neither of them had the opportunity to develop their skills fully. During this time Tal began to fashion the abiding philosophy of concentration of resources that was to guide the program for the next ten years. He felt that Brugnani was favoring Devon, giving him the better equipment and pusher. Devon’s driving was coming along well and the issue of who would drive the fourman arose since there would only be one four-man team. In an attempt to be fair in selecting the team for the Games,
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Fire on Ice Fear for the End Brugnani held a competition at the end of the training camp. Each driver—Devon and Tal—would push with each brakeman: Michael, Ricky McIntosh, and myself. The driver with the fastest total time would win. The brakeman with the fastest average push time would win. Tal won the driving competition including setting a personal record on the track at Igls. I won the brakeman competition. Together we would form Jamaica I for the Olympic Games. Devon Harris and Ricky McIntosh would compete as Jamaica II. Over the years since the Calgary Games, interest in the team had gradually subsided; by the time the team participated in the 1992 Olympic Winter Games in Albertville, France, it fell largely into obscurity, which was reflected in very poor T-shirt sales. While in Calgary we could not make enough T-shirts, in La Plagne the person to whom George subcontracted the T-shirt sales was left with inventory. Mexico seemed to have eclipsed us as the darling exotic world team. The La Plagne Games were widely dispersed over the French countryside and interest in bobsleigh was not at a fever pitch as in Calgary. Athletes using the track for their races had a village of their own at a Club Med high in the mountains above the track. It was the first time I drove down to the start of a bobsleigh track. Discussions and news coverage of Mike Tyson’s arrest on rape charges seemed to get more coverage than bobsleighing. The night before the start of the two-man race Tal twisted and turned in bed, suffering from a fever and awash in sweat. He never said anything to Brugnani; he simply showed up and raced. In the Olympic race, Jamaica II fin-
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ished in thirty-fifth place while Jamaica I finished in thirtysixth place. Since Devon had beaten Tal in the two-man race, the argument about who should drive the four-man sled arose once again. Brugnani chose Tal. He must have, however, been tempted to reconsider his decision when, on the first training run, Tal’s legs got caught up in the steering ropes and the sled overturned in the second turn. We had to suffer the pain of the memory of 1988 as well as the embarrassment of having the sled lifted from the middle of the track while a crowd gathered. Ricky McIntosh replaced Devon Harris on the four-man team consisting of Michael as pusher, me as brakeman and Tal as driver. Despite attempts by the demons of 1988 to raise their heads, we completed the race successfully with a twenty-fourth place finish. At the end of the race, Tal and I packed our bags, jumped into the 535 BMW that was provided to us through a sponsorship arrangement, and drove all night back to Igls. During that trip we struggled with formulating an approach that would give us the transformational change required to make Jamaica a world force in bobsleigh. On our transatlantic flight to attend the training camp before going to the Olympics, Tal and I had taken hope in Bob Marley’s lyrics from his song “Rastaman Live Up.” It’s inspired by the biblical story of Samson—the words “Samson slew the Philistines with a donkey jawbone” gave us hope somehow we could have pulled off a miracle, done the extraordinary with barest resources, but we did not. Still there had to be a way. Based on a 1986 IOC vote, the Winter and Summer Games had been staggered which meant that the next Win-
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Fire on Ice Fear for the End ter Games were just two years away. We did not have much time to find our way.
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Chapter 5 Coming in from the Cold “Have a dream. If you have a dream and recognize that you have the power to make that dream happen, which you do, and that you deserve that dream, which you do, it becomes a matter of persevering. And when you do, that dream will become a reality.” Dawn Steel—producer of Cool Runnings It’s an incredible thing to have done something in your life that someone thinks is worth making a movie about and then actually seeing the movie made and become a successful film. Yet this is what happened to a group of Jamaican athletes and an American dreamer. All through the challenges of 1988, with its successes, failures, and fame, never once did we as a group take ourselves so seriously as to believe that we were caught up in more than our personal goals and struggles. That our efforts could genuinely inspire other
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people, and that some large part of our fans considered us not a joke but a small group of people determined to succeed in an unlikely undertaking, was not a thought we actively entertained. It was therefore at once a shock and an honor when George told me in late 1988 that Michael Ritchie wanted to purchase the rights for a Jamaica Bobsleigh movie. Ritchie had an outstanding record of producing movies including The Golden Child starring Eddie Murphy, Couch Trip with Dan Akroyd, and Downhill Racer with Robert Redford, so George was inclined to take him seriously. George’s only condition was that Ritchie should not make a “Cheech and Chong” movie. Michael Ritchie paid $25,000 for a six-month option to make the movie. Once the option was purchased, Ritchie set to work by securing the services of Lynn Siefert to write a script. With script in hand, Ritchie then attempted to raise the twelve million dollars he thought would be necessary to produce the movie by preselling the distribution rights for different territories. He approached Hollywood studios to purchase the rights to distribute the film in North America, a Japanese group to distribute the movie in Asia, and a European studio to distribute throughout Europe. Ritchie got as far as getting a tentative commitment from one Hollywood studio. While Michael Ritchie was busy trying to put his deal together, some fateful developments were taking place in the movie industry. When Sony pictures purchased Columbia pictures, the president of Columbia Pictures, Dawn Steel, resigned and was retained by Michael Eisner, Disney
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Coming in from the Cold CEO. Steel had produced the movies Flatliner and Top Gun, among others. Eisner gave her complete creative control to produce whatever movies she wanted. It was her first project at Disney and she needed a big win. Steel chose to make the movie that was to become Cool Runnings. At 10 P.M. on the last day of the six-month contract with Michael Ritchie, George received a call from a lawyer saying that he represented Disney films, that Dawn Steel wished to make a movie about the Jamaica Bobsleigh Team, and were the rights available. Stunned, George squeezed a yes from his throat. As he became more relaxed, he told the Disney lawyer that Michael Ritchie had the rights, which would expire in two hours. The lawyer explained that Steel had already done a deal with Ritchie to take over the rights if they were available upon expiration of Ritchie’s option. George said the rights would be available and that he would be willing to come to some arrangement with Mrs. Steel. Disney paid Michael Ritchie and Lynn Siefert for their efforts. The company also came to an arrangement with George whereby it would pay $225,000 for the rights to make the movie. Thirty-five thousand was to be paid on signing and the balance was to be paid when principal photography began. There was also a clause to pay one-and-a-half percent of “net producers’ profit” to the persons on the contract, which were essentially the team members plus William Maloney and George Fitch. We have yet to receive payment based on this clause of the Disney agreement. During a training camp in Calgary in 1991, I met with Dawn Steel for breakfast to discuss the project. At the time 97
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the working title for the movie was Blue Mawga. I found her to be a person of immense energy and emotion who seemed to immerse herself in her every thought and to demand excellence from everyone around her and from herself. After an extended discussion about my own experience during the 1988 Games, she closed by saying: “I loved you guys from the moment I saw you in Calgary. You’re all fantastic and I’m going to make you big stars.” That she did. Several years later, in 1997 on December 20, as Tal and I were celebrating our qualification for the Nagano Games despite all the internal turmoil, we received the news that Dawn Steel had died of cancer that day at age 51. We were deeply saddened. Cool Runnings was released on October 1, 1993, in the US. I went to watch it with a group of friends in Moscow, Idaho. I did not know what to expect, but by the end of the ninety-eight minutes of the movie, I was thoroughly excited and motivated. The movie starred John Candy, Leon, Doug E. Doug, Rawle D. Lewis, and Malik Yoba. Tommy Swerdlow and Michael Goldberg joined Lynn Siefert to finish the screenplay and Jon Turteltaub directed. I waited through the credits to see if my name would appear. It did, at the very end. The theater staff, after sweeping up the spilled popcorn from around my feet, and thinking that I perhaps had not noticed that the theater was otherwise empty, asked me politely to leave. Up until then, I had been contemplating whether to commit fully to my career or to continue bobsleighing. That night I had my answer. Friends and colleagues alike now treated me with a degree of deference beyond that with which I was treated
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Coming in from the Cold upon returning from the Calgary Games, and made me feel almost continuously uncomfortable in their company. It took me some time to realize that, yes, I was part of something special and people don’t want to be intrusive, they just want to know more about the experience. Over the years I have heard a sentiment expressed by some that the movie sought to make fun of us. I disagree entirely. In fact I am certain that the movie was done with the object of building us up, not breaking us down, and of acknowledging the humor in the story without going to the ridiculous. Cool Runnings is a movie about real events, not a documentary on the events themselves. So there was no direct portrayal of any athlete, coach, administrator, or anyone else. Yet the movie represented aspects of events and various individuals well. While, then, the movie was not an exact history, it certainly captured the spirit of Jamaica Bobsleigh. The Gathering In 1993, the Jamaica Bobsleigh Federation embarked on a serious long-term venture for continued growth and development. Major Leo Campbell was appointed president of the federation and brought his considerable intellect, organizational skills, and work ethic to organizing its affairs. Athlete selection, of course, was a priority. In June 1993, as I stood on the cement pavement behind the fire station at the Jamaica Defense Force Headquarters—Up Park Camp—with Major Campbell and Tal, I was 99
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pleased to be present at this selection event. After five years in the sport, I was present at selection trials in Jamaica for the first time. The army had sent a contingent of athletes to try out for the team. The best was Winston Watt, who, in addition to being the army shot put champion, played soccer and showed tremendous acceleration during the sprint events. At 208 pounds, he seemed an excellent candidate for the team. None of the other military athletes had impressed. Alcan Jamaica Limited, the bauxite company, continued a history of supporting sport in Jamaica through sponsorships and the community involvement of Pat “Bunny” Anderson. The federation had asked him to recommend a few athletes to try out for the team. Alcan had already done so in 1992 with the participation of Patrick Robinson, one of its employees, but his lack of mental focus and physical awkwardness relegated him to a supporting role despite his considerable athletic talents. Now, however, Anderson got it right. He sent Wayne Thomas to the trials with a very strong recommendation. Wayne easily won the sprint events. His acceleration was relatively slow but he had excellent top speed, ideal for a brakeman. He came to the trials at 220 pounds. Winston’s impressive 400-pound bench press was only matched by Wayne’s 700-pound squat. Both were, in short order, to prove themselves among the best pushers in the world. During the early days of the 1994 Olympic season, the team improved rapidly and was soon doing quite well on the America Cup Circuit where it met the new criteria for
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Coming in from the Cold Olympic qualification, known in some circles as the 5-3-2, or Jamaica Rule. The rule states that to qualify for an Olympic Games, any team—two- or four-man— must compete in five approved races on three tracks over a twoyear period and earn a minimum of sixty America’s cup, thirty Europa cup, or ten world cup points in the Olympic season. There are further details and some exceptions to this rule, but this is what we faced in essence. The rule is at times referred to as the Jamaican Rule because it is designed to keep teams from just getting together and then showing up to compete at an Olympic Games without demonstrating competence in and commitment to the sport. By Christmas 1993, it became clear to me the team was an exceptional one and that I would have to be an integral part of it. I had been able to participate up to that time by taking leave from my job at the University of Idaho, but I had run out of that option. In 1988, I dropped out of my MBA program to compete in the Winter Olympics and to train for the Summer Olympics. My father did not approve. When I asked for money to go back to school in the fall of 1988, he said no. I did not complain for he had done so much in my life and had opened so many doors for me. I felt I stood at a dead end. I had to miss that semester as well. The following spring semester, my mother took out a loan to help send me back to school, and I was able to complete my studies with that help and through earning a research assistantship. My father hoped perhaps I had learned my lesson and would stick to the tried, proven, and sensible path, but I had not. 101
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In December 1993, I resigned from my job at the University of Idaho and gave up a promising career as an educational institution administrator to pursue an Olympic dream. From then on I could not see my life past the fourman race in Lillehammer. Upon leaving the administration building at the university for the last time, the administrative assistant for the vice president of financial affairs, Mrs. Wilson, told me in her southern accent, “You’re gonna be famous one day.” The team for the 1994 Winter Olympic Games to be held in Lillehammer, Norway, included: • • • • • •
Dudley “Tal” Stokes Nelson “Chris” Stokes Ricky McIntosh Jerome Lewis Winston Watt Wayne Thomas
The single most important decision made during this period was the retention of Sam Bock as national coach. Leading up to Christmas 1993, the team did not have a coach and we were pretty much taking advice coming from all directions. One evening after a hard day of training, we went to McDonald’s for dinner. After eating, we sat around chatting and were generally feeling good about our newfound competitiveness. We were approached by a graying gentleman in a sweat suit, whose face suggested he was in his late thirties and whose demeanor suggested he had drunk one cup of coffee too many for the day.
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Coming in from the Cold He launched into a nonstop fifteen-minute speech which provided a wealth of information including the facts that he was the personal coach of the leading Canadian team; his athletes had set world start records all over the globe; he had built the fastest two-man sled ever to race on the Calgary track; his nutrition program made the use of steroids at the elite sport level irrelevant; he was impressed with our start at the 1988 Games; and he was available to assist us. At the conclusion of his diatribe, he proceeded to give each of us a lesson in pushing the sled—head up, hips forward—a mantra we heard that night for the first time and would hear repeatedly over the years. We listened politely but expected the whole thing to end there. On leaving us he said his name was Sam Bock. A week or so later Tal, Leo, and I sat discussing the coaching situation. Up until that point we had developed a list of prospects for coach yet had not succeeded in securing the services of any. Leo explained that he’d been unable to get anyone at the top of our list but that a fairly successful coach, Sam Bock, was available. Leo had reservations, though, because he had been warned that Sam was excellent, however, he would come with baggage. We were not sure what that meant, but we were to find out. Baggage we thought would not bother us; we decided to focus on his strengths and were confident that we could deal with any baggage. Sam Bock was retained as the new coach for the Jamaica Bobsleigh Team. Upon breaking the news to the team, Wayne’s response was, “Lawd, have mercy.” Time was short; the Olympics were less than six weeks away, and much work had to be done. Bock’s focused, no-
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nonsense, intransigent style fit the times well. There was no time to debate. It was the coach’s way or no way. In order to maximize the team’s potential in such a short period of time, the members were subjected to training four to eight hours per day in total isolation in the former East German town of Oberhof at a special push training facility. The last week of the training camp focused on athlete selection for the two- and four-man teams. Winston, Wayne, Ricky, and I competed for one spot on the two-man team and three spots on the four-man team. For the first selection competition, I got myself in the stillness of mind I had come to know as being critical to performance, but at the moment of trial it all fell apart and I did everything I was not to do. I finished behind Wayne and Winston on that day. On subsequent days, my performance improved significantly, but I was only able to beat Wayne once out of six competitions. At the end of the week Wayne was first, I was second, and Winston, nursing a hamstring injury, was third. It was Tal’s expectation that I would be his brakeman in Lillehammer, as I had been in Calgary and La Plagne before, but it was not to be. Wayne was the best by far. We all knew this. I spared Tal the pain of having to tell me that he had to go with Wayne in the two-man. As soon as the last competition was done, I called him off to the side of the push track in about a foot of snow and said, “Wayne is your man. You have to go with him.” The best decision was made with personal disappointment but with great expectations for the team.
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Coming in from the Cold Later, when Wayne was to suffer an injury before the two-man competition, we reluctantly considered my taking his place. Wayne had worked hard and deserved to compete, and so he did. Some months later as Tal and I looked over the pictures from the Lillehammer Games, we came across a photograph of Wayne standing behind the sled at the start of the second run. Helmet on but not buckled, speed suit unzipped to the waist, Wayne looked like the mountain of a man he is, and Tal remarked, “I finally have a real brakeman.” I was hurt. Late in the fall of 1993 Red Stripe beer had stepped forward with a US $75,000 sponsorship, sufficient to get us to the Olympics comfortably. The Jamaica Tourist Board, as usual, provided financial support for the team. Big Slip The 1994 Olympic Winter Games got off to a dubious start. After the first day of competition, Wayne expressed concern his injury would not allow him to push at his best the following day. There was some discussion around my racing in his place. Sam considered the possibility of losing Wayne for the four-man. In the end we told him to go. Wayne is a warrior, but he did not want it said that he hid an injury. We did not take from him the pride of his accomplishment. Furthermore, eighty percent of Wayne was better than one hundred percent of the rest of us. The team finished the race in eighteenth position and held a mild celebration on the loading dock at the end of the last run. It was, thus far, the nation’s best result in either the two- or 105
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four-man Olympic competition, and we were pleased with the progress. As Tal put on his galoshes to protect his spikes, he was tapped on the shoulder by an official who told him the Jamaican sled had been selected to be weighed. Perhaps the strength of the result raised suspicions and our sled was selected for weighing or perhaps it was just random. I am not sure. According to FIBT rules, the weight of the two-man sled including the crew should be a maximum of 360 kilos. Tal and Wayne moved the sled confidently onto the scale and stood beside it. Sam had supervised the weighing of the sled on the last day of training and knew that it was a kilo or two below the maximum limit. There should not be any problem complying. The hand of the scale moved quickly toward 360 kilos as it had done on the last training day and then oscillated around the maximum mark, again as it had done before. This time, however, the hand settled to the right of the 360kilo mark—not quite 361, but still over. The team was disqualified. Sam was furious. Tal and Wayne wondered how this could have happened. Wayne, who had a history of putting on several pounds overnight, wondered if he was the problem, but upon weighing himself found he hadn’t gained any. One caricature which appeared later in the Jamaican Gleaner showed Wayne’s belly growing as he chugged a Red Stripe beer. This was not the case. We were bewildered ourselves and embarrassed for what we might have done to our nation’s Olympic reputation.
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Coming in from the Cold What emerged as remarkable to me, though, was that not one time throughout this entire debacle did we ever get discouraged. In fact it fueled our desire to do well in the fourman. The skeptics took comfort in knowing our strong performance could clearly be explained by the fact we had an overweight sled. Not to worry about the Jamaicans becoming competitive. The media descended on the team and Leo took the brunt of it. He explained what our checks had revealed. The day of the race was colder than training days and Sam decided to use a different set of runners for the race, runners he thought better suited to the colder ice. The problem was those runners weighed just that much more than the ones we used in training. A detail slipped between the cracks and cost us dearly. After explaining what happened, Leo turned prophetic: “We are really here for the four-man, and we intend to surprise a few people there.” Big Slide Before the start of the 1994 season, Tal had discussed with Leo the possibility of fielding only a two-man team, but Leo insisted that we have both a two- and a four-man team. We were all pleased with that stance, as the week of training in the four-man was about to begin. The four-man sled had been shipped directly to Lillehammer from La Plagne where we had participated in the European Championships/World Cup race in January. We had our sled covered in Red Stripe signage as per our sponsorship arrangement. The sled was shipped to Lillehammer as it appeared at LaPlagne. 107
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In preparation for the four-man training we went to the sled area, removed the sled from its crate, and put it out on the loading dock to where it was to be modified by our outstanding sled technician, Stuart Thorpe. We noticed that there were press crews walking around and filming, but they did not speak with us. A track official passing by reminded us we had to remove the Red Stripe signage before putting the sled on the ice the following day. We said such was our full intention. That night as we watched TV after dinner, we were flabbergasted to see a story saying the Jamaica Bobsleigh Team was warned by the IOC to remove commercial branding from its sled which was in contravention of the Olympic rules. Red Stripe, I imagined, must have been pleased with the coverage since the sled with their signage was shown extensively during the piece. This, coming on the back of our disqualification in the two-man, meant we were in the news again but none of it was particularly goodthis time. From the first day of training for the four-man, it became clear we were going to do well. On one day when we were high in the start order, we finished the day in sixth position. Other teams started to pay attention. My friend Trond Knaplund was now back in Norway from the University of Idaho and in charge of the bobsleigh track including track announcements. He relished our training performances and made the most of it over the public address system. Murmurings about what we could possibly do began to grow in volume. We knew we could do well but were not sure how well,
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Coming in from the Cold especially since we had to overcome the handicap of a twenty-first place start. Leading up to the race, spirits were very high and Sam was scurrying around excited and working overtime to the point where we hoped he would make it through the Games before collapsing. Thanks to excellent work by chiropractor John Sandel, both Winston and Wayne had overcome their injuries and were fit. Following our obligatory jumps and yells at the start of the four-man race and pumped to a final boiling point by a swift slap on the helmet by the pilot, we exploded the sled off the starting block. I heard the sighs of surprise from the crowd in the spectator gallery as I loaded into the sled, braced myself by the elbows long enough for Wayne to sit down behind me and then held on. I knew the start time was good. The run felt smooth and the down time was good. We had moved to eighteenth position. After the second run, we maintained that same position although we had to endure the scare of the sled riding too high in one of the corners, whisking along the driving line above which lay disaster. The more success the team achieved, the more excited Sam would become and the more things he would try. The night of the first day of competition, Sam called a team meeting. He explained to us that one day while driving to the start of the Calgary track for a race, his car broke down and he had to push it the rest of the way to the top of the hill. After pushing the car, Sam explained, he went on to have the best start he has ever had on that track. His conclusion—if we wished to improve our start the next day we 109
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should push a van uphill just before the race. The room was silent—we had learned the futility of arguing with Sam— but the air was thick with revolt. After the meeting, Wayne in particular expressed his exasperation at the instruction: we had never done it before, why do it prior to an Olympic race for the first time, all we would get was tired. Tal listened but would not take a position against Sam as I knew he wouldn’t. Having dispensed his latest prescription, Sam went off to bed, leaving the rest of us somewhat shellshocked. “There will be no pushing of any van tomorrow,” I declared. The gathering dispersed with relieved athletes heading off to bed. During warm-up the next day for the final two runs, Sam asked if we had pushed the van yet. No one answered. As I walked back to the heated tent which was used as an extension to the start house, I noticed the USA I driver Brian Shimer packing his bags as his crew took the runners off his sled. I was curious but was reluctant to ask why. I felt a little sheepish around them after being overheard during the training week referring—jokingly of course—to their sled, designed by car racer Jeff Bodine, as the Slowdine. Moments later, Winston informed me that Shimer had been disqualified for hot runners. The temperature of a competing team’s runners must be within a band of a few degrees of a control runner that was hung near the start. Shimer’s runners were outside of the band. We immediately went to measure the temperature of ours. Another disqualification would not do. As we took to the start, I was pleased to see the team’s godfather, Sepp Haidacher, brushing the ice from my
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Coming in from the Cold spikes. We went through our start ritual and took off. As our start time of 5.02 seconds was announced, it made an indelible impression on the mind of Gerd Leopold who was the coach of the German Harold Chudaj, the eventual gold medalist in the four-man event. Jamaica had started in the same time as his team. In the second turn I felt a cramp in my hip flexor but ignored it. Soon the sled felt like it was flying, and there was a noticeable absence of snapping off a curve or two or banging into walls on the straightaways. Upon climbing out of the sled at the end of the run, I noticed Tal’s clear delight as he looked at the down time and splits with Leo. We had finished in tenth position on that run and were in fifteenth position overall. This meant, based on the rotation of the starting order, we would be first off the hill in the final run of the four-man competition in an Olympic Games. It was a dream come true. We returned quickly to the start since we would have to go again soon. We told Sam we had no time to push the van—maybe next year. As I warmed up I felt the cramp in my hip return. In the Summer Olympic trials of 1988, I had felt a similar cramp while warming up for the semi-finals. The cramp came on when I accelerated suddenly, so I decided in that semi-final race to start gradually, then build up to my full sprinting speed quickly. I did and I placed fifth in the race. The top four went to the final. My tactic, I believe, had cost me a place in the final and perhaps a place in Seoul. That was a long time ago but I always believed that if I did not learn from that, then it would have been a failure. My approach that day as we stood on the verge of an astonishing performance was best 111
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summed up by a favorite statement of my longtime college friend and fellow athlete Everton Wanliss, who hailed from Christiana, Jamaica—“Anywhere it mawga, it pop off.” It was do or die, all or nothing. I would push my best or go home in a stretcher—there was no in-between. As we pushed off with all we had…I felt no pain. We finished the final run of the four-man competition in tenth place again, which moved us up to fourteenth place overall. Only eight nations finished ahead of us. We had beaten the two-man bronze medalist from Italy; the former Swiss national champion, Christian Meili; and the French and Russian teams, among a slew of other powerful and seasoned competitors. The team thereby leaped into the elite of the sport, the “Top Fifteen” best bobsleigh teams in the world. At the end of the run Tal knew what he had done and he banged on the top of the sled all the way up the braking stretch. It was the first time I had seen him happy after a race in six years of bobsleighing. As I popped out of the sled overcome with emotion, we hugged. Later that evening when I ran into Sam, I said, “Man, you are a genius.” Back in Jamaica, the nation exploded—office staffers broke out in roars, drivers blew their horns, and pedestrians jumped for joy as the news circulated that Jamaica had beaten the US in bobsleigh. Randy Will, driver of USA II, finished in fifteenth position, a hundredth of a second behind Jamaica. One sports magazine that had referred to us as “Sunday Sledders” in 1988, declared in 1994 that the Americans had to suffer the “ignominy” of losing to the Jamaicans.
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Coming in from the Cold The thought that we had improved and were actually now an excellent bobsleigh team was hard to accept and perhaps did not impress a few media holdouts including that one. The media generally, though, became respectful in its comments. John Morgan, the world-wide voice of bobsleigh, said as he commented on Tal coming down the track, oscillating in the Kreisel in 1988, “If you think bobsledding is like a roller coaster, then there is the best ride in town.” In 1994 he announced, “Dudley Stokes has finally figured out how to handle a sled.” The events at the Lillehammer Olympics proved one of the biggest upsets in bobsleigh history. This achievement, coupled with the media hype from the release of the movie Cool Runnings, served to enhance the image of the athletes worldwide. The FIBT, now under new, forward thinking and more inclusive leadership, was among the first to congratulate the Jamaican team.
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Chapter 6 A Dream Deferred Same Track, Different Direction Our reasoning was simple: if in two years we could have improved from twenty-fourth to fourteenth, then in four years we could perhaps win a medal. Having come so far against the odds, this was the only goal that remained a motivator. It was a distant dream from the beginning, but it could now be discussed in realistic terms. Sam Bock remained as national coach and devised an elaborate development program to bring the team into medal contention by the 1998 Nagano Games. The program included extensive research and development in the areas of sled and runner design and construction. The training and competition schedule was the most extensive we have ever undertaken, beginning in 1995 and intended to last through the Nagano Games. Nutrition and supplement programs were carefully researched, designed, implemented, and monitored. In the off-season, there were several three-
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to five-week training camps in Jamaica, which Sam would personally supervise in every detail. In September 1995, the four-man team won a bronze medal at the World Push Championships of Bobsleigh in Monaco. Things progressed but then fell behind. By early 1997, team morale fell to an all-time low and relationships were strained. The dream was quickly slipping from our grasp. Sam’s intransigent domineering style was bearable over short periods of time, but over the years it had become untenable for the athletes. Tal, who maintained an almost hardheaded attitude of backing the coach under any circumstance, became indifferent and began to drift in his own direction. When, at the end of the 1997 season, Wayne said he was quitting the team, Tal and I discussed if the time had come to change coaches. We decided to tough it out for one more season and persuaded Wayne to rejoin the team although his spirit was never fully there. In 1995, I had been elected president of the Jamaica Bobsleigh Federation, replacing Leo Campbell who migrated to the US to accept a job with a business-consulting firm. In my acceptance speech I quoted the words of Brutus in Act IV, Scene III of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: Under your pardon. You must note beside, That we have tried the utmost of our friends, Our legions are brim-full, our cause is ripe: The enemy increaseth every day; We, at the height, are ready to decline. There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
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A Dream Deferred Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat; And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our ventures. I would reflect on the meaning of these words many times over the next six years. While remaining physically active, including competing at the club level in track and field, I did not bobsleigh from 1995 until 1997. I attended the training camps in Jamaica and Sam remained impressed with what he called my short speed. Looking toward the Olympic season, he insisted I rejoin the team. While I was unsure of making the time commitment because of my growing professional responsibilities, I decided to come back in if for no other reason than to stabilize an explosive situation. When my name was submitted to Mike Fennel, president of the Jamaica Olympic Association, to attend the Nagano Games as an athlete, he immediately called a lunch meeting with Sam and myself. Before the meal was served it became clear to me what his motivation was—he was not sure why I was going as an athlete since he knew I had not competed for a while. He wanted to hear from Sam that, as coach, he wanted me back on the team and to be assured I was able to compete at an Olympic level. Sam as usual launched a twenty-minute explanation of why I needed to be on the team, ending with his time sheets from training showing I still had the best 10- and 30-meter times of the team. Mike was convinced. We spent the rest of the lunch listening to Sam. 117
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Separate Ways The plan was for me to rejoin the team in Munich, after the Winterberg World Cup Race and then proceed to Igls for a training camp. As I cleared immigration, I was greeted by Tal who had a big bandage over his nose. “What happened to you?” I inquired. “I broke my nose.” Sam immediately took over the conversation and started to explain all the work left to do before the Games. I excused myself and headed for the rest room. Wayne followed. As the door closed behind Wayne and me in the rest room, he blurted, “Mr. Chris, this is not going to work.” I knew exactly what he was talking about. I learned that Winston, that gentle giant, tired of being cursed just one time too many, had launched himself at Sam’s throat in Winterberg and had to be restrained by several men. Tal, who by this time was not speaking with Sam, had grown increasingly despondent. Without Tal’s conscious intervention to boost team morale, the team had become increasingly despondent and distracted. In a sport where full mental commitment is perhaps more important than physical commitment, the result was predictable. The load into the sled on the last run of the Winterberg race was bungled and Wayne, sliding in the number two position behind the driver, ended up “crowding” Tal’s driving space. This explained the crash in curve nine of the track and the resulting broken nose. Wayne said he had done his best and wanted to know the earliest he could return to Jamaica.
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A Dream Deferred I went to rejoin the team as an athlete, but it was clear to me I had to take care of some presidential matters first before I could effectively resume the role. That night after settling into our accommodations, I told Tal I was going downstairs to fire Sam because the team was falling apart. He congratulated me on my astute observation and immediately reached for a notepad. Sam and I met. I explained the coaching relationship was not going to work and it would be best if we went our separate ways. He took it calmly, said he understood, but then went on to explain that my problem was not with him but with those “athletes upstairs” sleeping. If I could get them to do as they were told, everything would be all right. I took a break from the meeting and called Dusty Miller in Jamaica. Dusty was a longtime family friend whose advice I valued. He was in Winterberg during all the happenings and was to be Jamaica’s Chef de Mission to Nagano. I explained the situation to him and asked his advice. “Tough it out,” he said, like the old soldier that he is. I went back into the meeting and told Sam that I would give it a few days and observe the situation myself. Upon returning to the room, Tal asked, “Did you fire him?” “No,” I replied. He was disappointed and put down the pad on which he had made extensive notes on how we would make it to the Games without a coach. The following days were stressful. It is hard to train a team when every word from the coach’s mouth provokes anger in the hearts of the athletes. And, likewise, when the actions of the athletes drive the coach to anger and verbal abuse. Sam became particularly offended when Tal told a number of his adult army jokes around his wife. The fol119
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lowing day I became particularly offended when Sam referred to Tal as being stupid or something of the sort. Infuriated, I headed for him with the most intimidating walk I could muster, to do what I was not sure, and was relieved when Wayne wrestled me to the ground. That night I fired Sam as coach of the team. With six weeks to go before the Olympic Games, the team found itself struggling and without a coach. It was December, the Olympics were in February, and we still had not qualified. This we intended to do at our next world cup race in La Plagne, France, but without a coach, our goals and the program were threatened. Immediately after firing Sam, I went to the phone and called Trond Knaplund in Norway and asked him if he would be interested in coaching the team through the Games. He was excited about the prospect but declined, citing several professional responsibilities over the coming months. The following day Sepp Haidacher came to take us to his house for dinner. “Sepp,” I began as I entered his van, “Sam is no longer with the team.” He looked at me, grinned, and replied, “Thank God.” Sepp thought for a moment, then got on his mobile phone. After about a fiveminute conversation in German, he hung up and said, “Your new coach is Gerd Leopold.” That night at dinner we found out more about Gerd, that he ran a sports center in Reise, Germany, but more importantly he’d been coach for the 1994 Olympic gold medalist Harold Chudaj and had been a longtime admirer of our team. In addition to his vast knowledge of pushing technique, Gerd could also give us access to state-of-the-art
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A Dream Deferred sled and runner equipment. That night we ate and slept well. Restart Tal had decided that at this stage in his career if he could not qualify for an Olympic Games on the World Cup Circuit, then he was prepared not to go. The first victim of that policy was the two-man since his earlier results were not good enough to qualify him for the two-man event on the World Cup Circuit. While the two-man team could certainly have earned the points to qualify, it suffered a major setback at the first race of the season when Sam did not take the sled to the start on time. The jury considered disqualifying the team from the race entirely but settled on allowing the team to race under the condition that it start last on both runs. This, in effect, removed the opportunity to earn sufficient points from this race and derailed the attempt to qualify the two-man team on the World Cup Circuit. The four-man, however, had an excellent chance to qualify, but we had to do it at La Plagne before the Christmas break. Gerd would meet us there on the day of the race. On that day he just stood and watched us, taking meticulous notes. We arrived at the track ready to perform despite many troubles including my back injury and a borrowed sled, which seemed to want to weigh us down. That day, we qualified for the Olympic Games by securing three world cup points, enough to take us up to ten for the season which is what we needed to qualify. We went home for Christmas in pain but hopeful. A weekend with our families at 121
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Beaches Negril, as part of our sponsorship package with Sandals, served us well. We were to return to Igls in ten days to resume Olympic preparation. As we drove from Munich to Igls the mood was light and interactive, as it was in the old days. I was pleased. We had every reason to believe the worst of the current era was behind us and with a little luck, we could recapture some of the old magic that seemed to have been lost. We were wrong. Whither Thou Goest We began four-man training in a state-of-the-art sled sent to us by Gerd. Harold Chudaj had used the sled the previous year with great success. It was wind-tunnel-tested and battle-proven. Now we were in business, or so we thought. Tal had been down this track several times, so we pushed off and loaded for our first training run with great confidence. Turn eight, that big 360-degree turn, seemed a little wobbly but not to worry. As we exited turn nine, I felt the violent impact of the top of my helmet against the ice wall on the left side of the track, then felt my shoulder rubbing on the ice on the right side. Not only had we crashed but the sled had also barrel-rolled, a particularly painful affair. I did not worry about Tal since he had developed the knack of slipping under the cowling during a crash, thereby protecting himself. The sled slid on its side all the way up the braking stretch, and we all got out, as was normal after a crash, and checked on the well-being of each other. This time, though,
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A Dream Deferred Tal simply walked off and sat on the large scale at the finish area used to weigh the sleds. After satisfying myself that Wayne and Winston were fine, and that the sled was okay to go again, I walked over to where Tal was sitting. Before I could say a word, he asked, “What are you doing here?” The question confused me: Did he mean that I should get back up to the top of the hill and get ready to go again? He continued, “I thought you were in Idaho.” It was then that I realized that he was asking me what I was doing on the track in Igls, Austria. “I haven’t been to Idaho in four years,” I told him. “Did you finish school?” he inquired sincerely. “Yes, in 1989.” He seemed pleased. “This is 1998,” I continued. Tal had not been able to get under the cowling before sustaining the full impact of the crash on the left side of his helmet. He had lost all short-term memory. As we drove in the back of the truck with the sled to the start house, I explained to him what had happened over the past eleven years. He was still married to Denise and they had two lovely children, Christian and Teressa. Denise was pregnant and expecting to have the baby sometime in May. We had continued competing since 1988 and were now preparing for the 1998 Games in Nagano, Japan. The big guy on the left is Wayne and the big guy on the right is Winston. He nodded at each. We did so-so in ’92, hired Sam in ’93, beat the US in ’94 (which got his attention), fired Sam in ’97, and are being coached by Gerd in ’98.
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I lost his attention. When we got to the top of the hill we were greeted by Sepp Haidacher. “What happened?” Sepp quizzed Tal. “You look older,” was his reply. That night we took Tal to the local hospital where a number of tests were run. The doctor suggested he stay overnight for observation, but Tal refused as I knew he would since he has a long-held conviction that if you are not sick when you go to the hospital, they are likely to kill you once you are there. He was released and I was instructed to check his state of consciousness every half hour. Fearing that Tal would slip off into a coma in the night, I started doing just that. The first two times I checked on him he let out he was okay in a sleepy voice. The third time he growled and the fourth time he said if I woke him again he’d throw me out into the hallway. I sat and watched him for the rest of the night. Two days later we were back at the top of the hill. Tal was back in 1998 and seemed eager to continue training. The doctors were not enthusiastic, but “I’ll be sick after Nagano” was Tal’s attitude. We started off a little tentatively but quickly picked up speed. In turn nine we crashed again, barrel-rolled again. This time I was pleased to find as we got out of the sled, that Tal threw down his helmet and started cursing at himself. I knew he was fine. “Let’s go back up,” he grunted. When we returned to the start, Sepp called me outside. “Is everything okay at home with Tal?” he asked. I thought briefly and replied, “Yes.”
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A Dream Deferred “Is business okay?” Sepp continued. I thought again, then said, “Probably not, but that’s normal.” “What’s the problem?” Sepp asked almost in exasperation. All I could say was, “I don’t know.” We turned the sled over on the ice and set up to go again. This time we were all a little tentative in pushing the sled. After the top three curves, the sled seemed to pick up speed rapidly. Soon I felt like I had never been in a sled going this fast. Later as we checked the time sheets, I realized the sled was actually going pretty slowly but such is the power of fear—it makes the slow seem fast and the minutes seem like hours. We exited eight and entered nine. I felt Wayne press his helmet deep into my back. I did the same to Winston and hoped that he was not doing the same to Tal. I felt the sled ride up into the apex of the curve and keep on rising. I knew we were going to crash again and we did. I hoped we would not barrel roll again but we did. That was enough for the day. That evening as we finished putting the sled into storage in mutual silence, Tal called a meeting. I am only imagining that his speech was supposed to have gone something like this: “I know that you guys have stuck with me through a lot, but right now I am having a difficult time. I have crashed you three times on the last three runs, twice today. You are all beat up and bruised. This problem is something I need to figure out on my own, and I would not be offended if any of you wanted to sit out sliding while I figure out what’s going on.”
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Before he could get it out, though, we all sensed the tone and direction of his words. Wayne was the first to react. He hissed through his teeth and packed his bag to leave. Winston and I followed. We were having nothing of it. “Meeting done,” I said as I walked past Tal. There was never any question, any issue that we would stick by Tal, three or thirty crashes. He was frustrated and showed concern, perhaps weakness, in his own ability, but we did not doubt him and did not want to hear it. We lived together, we competed together, and if needs be we would die together before turning our backs on each other. The issue never came up again. The next day we went back to the start and as I took my position beside the sled I saw the words from John 3:16 on the back of Wayne’s helmet: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Every time I watch footage of the 1988 crash I see the sign with John 3:16 written on it. I knew the verse well. It was eerie. Wayne was a spiritual person but not religious. However, that night he had made his peace with God. We were in this together and we were ready to meet our maker together if need be. It turned out the steering mechanism on the sled that was set by Chudaj was far looser than what Tal was accustomed to, so when he thought he made a turn, he had in fact not done so. Hannes Conte, an Austrian bobsleigher and friend of Jamaica Bobsleigh, worked with Wayne late into the
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A Dream Deferred night to adjust the steering mechanism. We never crashed again. Following our successful participation in the Igls World Cup Race we traveled to Reise, Gerd’s hometown, in the former East Germany. There we planned to stay and train before departing for the Games. The training was as intense as when we were in Oberhof four years earlier, but the mood was far more relaxed and the environment far more pleasant. The Olympia, Gerd’s gym, was a fine facility located right beside a two-lane push track, the only one of its kind in the world. We were in an ideal training environment, and we made the most of it. The people of Reise were kind and seemed genuinely pleased to meet us wherever we went. I was surprised at the sophistication of a gentleman’s arguments, a storeowner, as he explained his marketing strategy for 1998. I was impressed and became less concerned about the ability of this part of Germany to adapt to a free-market system. At the end of the training camp, Gerd decided to leave the pushing team as it was in 1994: Winston at two, me at three, and Wayne on the brake. Our level of sponsorship during this period was more than ever before. In addition to the customary support from the Jamaica Tourist Board, we had a two-year US $200,000 arrangement with Red Stripe. Sandals had come on board for US $50,000, and the Sports Development Foundation of Jamaica provided US $15,000 to go toward leasing and purchasing equipment. While the timing of the arrival of the funds was often problematic, in total we were in our best financial position ever. We were trained, funded, and ready for Nagano. 127
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An Inch Given In February 1996, I had received an E-mail from one Paul Skog, a lawyer of Evanston, Wyoming, inviting the Jamaica Bobsleigh Team to use that town as its training base in preparation for the Nagano Games and then subsequently for the Salt Lake City Games. He explained Evanston was a short drive from the Olympic track in Park City, Utah, and that accommodations were cheap and training facilities good. Although I knew that Sam would not move our training base from Calgary to Evanston, I wanted to keep the option open for post-Nagano consideration. In the meantime, Devon Harris, who had been out of the program since 1992, had contacted me and expressed an interest in resuming his bobsleigh career as a driver. I was excited over the prospect but was not sure we could afford a second team on ice at the time. Nevertheless, one of the joys I get from sports administration is creating opportunities for athletes, and this is what I wanted to do for Devon. Much to the dismay of Tal and members of the federation executive board, I sent US $10,000 to Devon and introduced him to Paul Skog, who could provide a cheap training environment for him. If he could qualify for the Olympics, I promised I’d see to it that he went. The arrangement quickly became problematic. In an effort to raise funds Devon had formed “Jamaica Bobsleigh Team -Harris,” a concept I supported on the condition that all sponsorship arrangements would be with the federation. Devon apparently did not understand, did not agree, or did not feel he would be given a fair opportunity. He applied
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A Dream Deferred his resources and his considerable industry and charm to create and market Team-Harris, which resulted in securing a personal sponsorship from a telephone company and in developing merchandise sales. The difficulty, which I foresaw, quickly arose. Jamaica Bobsleigh is a brand that can be strengthened, diluted, or cannibalized. Devon’s activities produced dilution. Red Stripe, who had signed on as the official sponsor of the Jamaica Bobsleigh Team, became upset there seemed to be two teams and felt their advertising mileage was being compromised. Other sponsors curtailed negotiations pending a settling of the rights concerning the use of the name Jamaica Bobsleigh that we, of course, insisted was the property of the federation and not any individual athlete. One advertisement posed Devon as the captain of the Jamaica Bobsleigh Team, which was simply not true. When people paid money for merchandise they did not receive and then proceeded to blame the federation, I decided I’d had enough. I suspended Devon pending a cessation of acts detrimental to the federation that I enumerated. He had repeatedly refused to do so previously and left me with little choice. After much struggle, he purported to comply, although his actions never fully honored the agreement and continued after the grace period established for compliance. I understood Devon’s drive and motivation. He had come far and done well. With a little help he felt he could do better, and I silently hoped he would. Driven with a burning desire, he would do what he had to get to the Olympics and do well there. It was clear, though, that I had to protect the federation. Devon looked out for Devon; I 129
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had to look out for an entire program. On this occasion those imperatives were not in congruence. Still I wanted Devon to compete. This objective proved particularly difficult to stick to. Both Sam Bock and Gerd Leopold told me that, in their opinion, an investment in Devon as a driver was a waste of time. Leo Campbell, whom I had turned to for advice on the matter, made it clear he was not in favor of taking Devon, whom he felt could not reach the new standard of performance set by the federation. Jamaica Olympic Association president Mike Fennel expressed repeated concerns that I wanted to enter Devon when he seemed below the standard that the JOA would approve. I was relieved when Devon qualified through the America Cup Circuit for the Olympics, and pointed this out to Mike who reluctantly conceded to his entrance. I thought about backing out but remembered I had promised Devon that if he qualified, I would take him. This decision cost me political mileage within the federation— among the athletes plus administrators and coaches—and it also raised a few eyebrows in the JOA. For the entire twoweek period of the Olympics, the “Tal athletes” and the “Devon athletes” were at odds. Generally, the four-man crew did not respect the two-man crew, and saw them, as Gerd described, to be “hamburger men” who were out to undermine, with subpar performances, the fine reputation of Jamaica Bobsleigh as the competitive team they had worked so hard to create and foster.
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A Dream Deferred When I heard it rumored that Devon was going around saying that I was “fighting him down,” I could only smile. There are many lonely places at the top. Devon finished twenty-ninth in the two-man race. A far cry from the eighteenth-place finish in Lillehammer, although we were disqualified, and a far cry from what Tal would probably have done had he competed, but it was our best official result in an Olympic Games to that point. I was relieved. After the two-man race, Devon’s brakeman Michael Morgan thanked me profusely for the opportunity to compete in the Olympic Games, telling me, “Everything bad in life has happened to me, but today I am an Olympian.” Broken promises, lost faith, personal disappointment, and treachery seemed small matters at that moment. Twists of Faith The four-man team entered the Nagano Games with great expectations. Tal sat out the two-man so the first week was spent doing sprint training and studying the track. During this week we also took the opportunity to fulfill several of our sponsorship obligations with Sandals. This included attending a reception party for Japanesebased travel professionals in Tokyo. A Jonathan Rodgers who was on contract with Sandals organized the activity. While we were still in Reise before even meeting him, we learned Jonathan had developed a deep interest in our activities to the point he offered to do a Japanese version of our World Wide Web site. I agreed but was not optimistic it could be done in the time remaining before the Games.
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I was pleasantly surprised upon arriving in Tokyo to learn the site had been up and running for some time. This was my first insight into the tremendous work ethic and creativity of this man. At the travel professional function, we performed the team’s version of Bob Marley’s “Lively Up Yourself” featuring Ricky McIntosh and Wayne Thomas, from our compilation CD. The CD project would have fallen under the purview of P. C. Harris in 1988, but this time it had been organized by Sam Bock, while he was still coach who, typically, believed his breadth and depth of skills were extensive, including being a musical producer. After making the appearance for our sponsors, Jonathan asked us if we could consider visiting his old high school. Tal and I considered it briefly. We were anxious to get back to the Olympic Village and back into the competitive mindset. But since Jonathan had committed his time and energy to assisting us, beyond what was required by Sandals, we gladly agreed to go to the school. Two years later he would show us just how much he appreciated our gesture and believed in our cause. We were drawn to start number twenty-four. Gerd calculated that we would finish in twenty-first position but as we pushed off the hill, following our obligatory slaps on the helmet by Tal, all I could think of was winning. The ride at the top of the track was very smooth but became rough at the bottom. We moved up to twenty-first place where we would stay for the rest of the competition. Runner selection is very important in bobsleigh. Based on the ice temperature leading up to the race, we had decided to use our DDG runners. However, on the day of the
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A Dream Deferred race three important developments took place. The weather warmed up, it rained, and the ice started to break apart. Starting at twenty-fourth, we hoped that the run would be cancelled but we were given instructions to go off, which we did. The teams that went off earlier had the benefit of the harder ice and no rain; we now faced rugged ice and rain. As we looked at the time splits for our run that night, Gerd pointed out how well we were doing until we got to the rough lower part of the track and slowed dramatically. “It is not possible to do well with this condition,” was his conclusion. The second run was cancelled because of the state of the track. This was of little comfort since we had already suffered the drawback of the bad ice conditions. That none of the major medal contenders were affected by this development meant there was no hope of having the entire day’s results cancelled. The following day we completed both runs but were unable to advance further in our standings. As expected, the Japanese Games were well organized, and I got an insight into a culture referred to so often when I was studying for my MBA—Japanese management style, emphasis on long-term planning, and quality were themes in vogue at the time. Nothing gave me a better insight into this culture, though, than the evening after the four-man race when we were all leaving the bobsleigh venue. There I saw a three-hundred-meter single-file line of people, in the cold and rain, boarding the buses back into Nagano in a continuous and orderly stream. “This is not possible in Germany,” Gerd remarked. It surely was not possible in Jamaica, but it happened in Japan and I understood how so many people could live on a small island so well. 133
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None of the thrill of 1994 was there, yet based on our season and our performance at the Games, we drew satisfaction from salvaging what could have been a disastrous season and the knowledge that we were still running with the best. We returned to Jamaica uncertain of the composition and future of the Jamaican Bobsleigh Team.
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Chapter 7 A Time to Sow Acceptance and Change The 1997-98 season marked the tenth season of Jamaica’s participation in the sport of bobsleigh. During that time, years of struggle and disappointment were rewarded with moments of triumph. Perhaps no single event signaled the acceptance of Jamaica Bobsleigh more than Jamaica’s hosting in 1999 of the FIBT’s annual congress, the highest law-making body of the sport. There was a certain irony in seeing some of the men who objected to our participation basking in the Jamaican sun at a bobsleigh congress. During his years as president, Bob Storey made us feel that we were no less and no more than any other bobsleigh nation. Our viewpoints, we felt, were heard, considered, then accepted or rejected in whole or in part on their merit. Storey was firm but fair. Our confidence in him was such that we never sought to impute motive in any decision as we might have in the previous FIBT administration. He had
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made bobsleigh a truly world sport and we had all benefited from that. The 1999 congress closed the circle on our FIBT acceptance. I retired from international bobsleigh competition in June 1998. Tal followed suit and retired in February 1999, after competing in the America’s cup two-man on the Olympic track in Park City. Devon indicated his retirement in 2000. It was the end of an era; the three of us were the last remaining active athletes from the 1988 Cool Runnings team. More than any other, the retirement of Tal created a vacuum. For ten years, he was the face, the voice, and the inspiration behind Jamaica bobsleigh and its story. Sometimes single-handedly, sometimes with considerable help, he had pulled Jamaica bobsleigh forward. The FIBT honored Tal with its President’s Trophy, the highest recognition for an active athlete this governing body confers. On October 16, 2000, he was recognized by the government of Jamaica by being invested with the nation’s fourth highest honor—the Order of Distinction, Officer Class. An era had ended; it now became time to look forward. Starting over and Moving Up I was reelected president of the Jamaica Bobsleigh Federation in 1998 and I immediately implemented a program to invest in the future of Jamaica bobsleigh. A new constitution was put in place, which formalized and enhanced the governing guidelines for the sport in Jamaica. A new, highly talented executive was also put in place to guide the
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A Time to Sow program. The advancement of the sport would also require drastic change. This process began with the retention of Trond Knaplund as national bobsleigh coach. Trond regretted that he could not have accepted the coaching position in 1997 but jumped at the opportunity in 1999 when I suggested it to him. In June 1999, he moved to Jamaica to take up coaching. His first undertaking was to embark on an aggressive recruitment program throughout the length and breadth of the island. Instead of inviting everyone to Kingston to trials, selection events were held in Port Maria in St. Mary, Montego Bay in St. James, Mandeville in Manchester, and of course at the national stadium in Kingston. In the past we had sought only male athletes. This time we wanted both male and female athletes. This process led to the selection of an impressive cadre of young athletes, most notably Lascelles Brown who was from the same hometown—May Pen, Clarendon—as Winston Watt, and who accepted Winston’s invitation to try out for the team. Pending the winning of an Olympic medal, it is the best thing Winston has done for the program. Also selected were Clive McDonald, Garnett Jones, and Wayne Blackwood. In September 1999, Winston and Lascelles placed sixth in the World Push Championships of Bobsleigh in Monaco. In 2000, they won the event, and were joined by Wayne Blackwood and Garnett Jones to take the silver medal in the four-man event. The world got a glimpse of what we could do if we had the resources, but only a glimpse. At the 2001 Push Championships, Winston and Lascelles retained
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their gold medal though in less impressive fashion, and the same four-man team finished in fourth position. The first ten months of Trond’s involvement in the program was limited to extensive running and a weight-lifting regimen complemented by a short stint at a bob school in Igls for the men. The lack of funding continued to hinder our ability to implement the grand plans, drawn up in such detail by Trond. Eve of Discontent The possibility of the inclusion of women’s bobsleigh in the 2002 Olympic Winter Games was seriously discussed by the FIBT as the 1998 Olympic Winter Games approached. The JBF immediately supported the movement. Jamaica has achieved an outstanding record of participation by women in the Summer Olympics including the exploits of Merlene Ottey, Grace Jackson, and Deon Hemmings to name a few. We felt we had the athletes and now the experience in the sport to field a competitive team. In fact, it seemed to me that we had a real chance of winning a medal in this event. Even before being assured women’s bobsleigh would be approved as an Olympic event, we began developing the program. Tal had invited two excellent female prospects from the JDF, Lieutenant Antonette Gorman and Captain Judith Blackwood, into the program. Together, they became Jamaica’s first ladies on ice and launched their bobsleighing careers by successfully participating in a driving school in Park City, Utah, in October 1998.
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A Time to Sow Women’s bobsleigh, under the jurisdiction of the FIBT, was formally added to the Olympic Winter Games on Saturday, October 2, 1999, by the International Olympic Committee. I was pleased. Women formed an integral part of the sport in its early days, often as part of mixed teams. It was time they returned to their rightful place. Upon arriving in Jamaica, Trond joined me in weight training at the Spartan Gym in Kingston. It was like the old days of lifting at the Kibbie Dome at the University of Idaho. In between sets, we would discuss extensively what Trond would call “factors for success”—good athletes, good equipment, ice time, keen desire—for the sport. We were pleased with the quality of male athletes in the program but were concerned with the female program. We had some good athletes but felt we could do better. From time to time at the gym, we would see a particularly fit looking young lady and would discuss if we should invite her into the program. This was largely unsuccessful. On one such occasion Trond brought to my attention the athletic physique of a lady across the gym. It was Portia Morgan, an aerobics instructor and someone with whom I was familiar. We did not approach her that day. A week or so later I learned she had started coming to bobsleigh training. When Trond told me he was taking her out to dinner, I did not pay too much attention. He had already been out with Antonette and Judith on several occasions, and I thought of it as a natural part of hosting Trond in Jamaica. Before long, I began hearing murmurings of Trond spending too much time with Portia at the expense of other athletes. I did not believe it and wondered
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if there was a little jealousy there. It was the beginning of things for which I was most unprepared. I planned to go to England in November 1999 with my wife, Michele, to see her doctor regarding her lupus, which had been diagnosed in Jamaica ten months earlier after the death of our son Gabriel. The night before my departure, Trond stopped by to wish us a safe trip and to borrow my camcorder. Portia was with him. After being in England for a few days and relieved that my wife had been dealing well with her condition, I decided to check my E-mail. There I saw a note from Trond, who, among other things, wrote that he and Portia had been married. I had mixed feelings. I had known Trond for fourteen years and had lived with him. He is my daughter’s godfather. Yet he came to my house, borrowed my camcorder, then went to Ocho Rios and got married without saying anything to me beforehand. I dismissed it, attributing the slight to the influence of his new wife. If he was happy, I was happy—at least from a personal perspective. However, I was not sure what it meant for the bobsleigh program. My gut told me it was a bad thing but I felt it could be managed, and I trusted Trond’s sense of fairness. I called Tal and gave him the news. He paused, sighed, and said, “Lord have mercy, this is not good.” That same month Antonette and Judith participated in the Calgary bobsleigh school under the guidance of Trond. Things did not go well. Antonette, who by this time was proving the better driver, crashed, started having second thoughts about the sport, and according to Trond, became scared. From that bobsleigh school until the following Feb-
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A Time to Sow ruary, the entire women’s program degenerated into a quagmire of “he said, she said.” This was exacerbated in January when Trond took Portia to Norway with him to teach her to drive and he gave her full, personalized attention. We did not have enough resources to send a full team and this arrangement, though smacking of favoritism, worked well for us in terms of driver development. Inevitable accusations that Trond was biased toward Portia were followed by counteraccusations that the other athletes could not make the grade. Antonette accused me of being incompetent, unable to raise the funds to get the women’s team on the ice. She and her husband approached me with an elaborate fund-raising scheme to write one hundred or so Jamaican companies to raise the US $5,000 we needed to send the other women to Norway. I had vast experience at fund-raising and knew it wouldn’t work, but I went along with them since I felt that the best way for our new experts to learn was to try. The effort raised US $50 from a personal friend of Tal’s. After that, all fund-raising efforts were left up to me. Portia, in the meantime, learned fast and trained well. In January 2000, Portia Morgan, driver, and Jennifer Morgan, brakeman, became the first Jamaican women to compete in a world cup when they completed that race in Lillehammer. They finished last, in thirteenth position, but we had made a start. By the beginning of the 2000-01 season, both Antonette and Judith had quit the program, which was fine with Trond since he already indicated that he could not work with Antonette. The executive board of the federation discussed Trond’s position extensively.
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While we agreed that Antonette could not continue in the program, we debated who should have final say in which athletes should be in the program. We decided to leave such matters in the hands of the coach. The next time Trond took that position, the result would be different. Portia, as women’s driver, was now the only game in town. I regret things developed the way they did and could not have played themselves out in a more equitable fashion— that is to say, equal resources for all and a selection based on race results. Still, I am certain the decision to go with Portia was the right one. She developed exceptionally well on the track and represented the federation well in public with potential to become one of the best women drivers in the sport. Cast Your Bread upon the Water In February 2000, while still trying to come to terms with the future of the women’s program, Tal and I received an E-mail message from our old friend from Japan, Jonathan Rodgers. We had not heard from him for some time. Jonathan explained he had entered the dot-com business with an on-line service, which would provide information on the tourism products of a number of countries for the Japanese market. The company was named “Virtual Tourist Board” (VTB). His work experience to date had largely been in the travel sector, and this seemed a natural extension. He had secured financial backing from a company expanding into the dot-com business, Venture Soft. Based on
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A Time to Sow our conversation in Nagano in 1998 where we had indicated to be fully prepared for 2002, we would need a minimum of US $500,000 per year for two years. Jonathan was providing sponsorship beyond that minimum but in addition, the right amount to run a thorough program. I did not believe it. I asked Tal what he understood by the letter. His explanation was similar to what I thought I read but still it was unbelievable. The backing was over twice what we had raised in the program over the previous twelve years. After rereading the E-mail half a dozen times or so, we still could not comprehend the offer. We called Jonathan. He explained it was real, but of course we would have to earn our keep by providing certain opportunities for the company and its major investor, Venture Soft. In April 2000, we flew to Tokyo to conclude the deal. Tal and I had a good impression of Japan at the Olympics but on this trip, we were thoroughly impressed. We stayed at the legendary Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. I have stayed at many hotels in my life, but none as exquisite as this one. The quality of the infrastructure, facilities, and amenities was surpassed only by the almost personalized service given by the hotel employees. We knew we were dealing with men of means. The day after our arrival, we met Jonathan in the lobby. He was pleased to see us and we hugged easily. We spent the day discussing what he had been up to since the Nagano Games. The bottom line was that he had developed VTB, a business concept for an on-line tourist agency service for nations. He met the president of Venture Soft, Tendo Oto, who expressed an interest in investing in VTB. Within a short period, Jonathan was not only in 143
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charge of the VTB project but he also became effectively a part of the Venture Soft (VS) management team. The two companies were planning an initial public offering with VTB scheduled to be listed in September 2000, and VS some time after that. Jonathan, still grateful for our small kindness in visiting his school in 1998 and seeing the promotional and merchandising opportunity from being associated with the Jamaican Bobsleigh Team, integrated sponsorship of the team into his development plans for VTB. Tendo Oto supported the idea at which point Jonathan had sent us his famous E-mail. Since receiving the Email and confirming it was valid, we had been working between ourselves and with lawyers to finalize the terms of our engagement. It struck me in these discussions how tough Jonathan could be on business points despite maintaining a personal relationship, a quality that we all valued as we went forward together. Business was business, and it became apparent we had to sing for our supper. The next day we went to the headquarters of Venture Soft where we met Mr. Oto, a pleasant, immaculately dressed gentleman in his thirties with a passion for golf and mountain climbing. He had made his fortune in music and in July 1999 started Venture Soft to provide intellectual property management, focusing on copyrights for magna animation as well as the development of new image content. Having been guided by Jonathan on the expectations of the Japanese business culture, Tal presented a gift for Mr. Oto—his helmet and speed suit from the 1988 Olym-
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A Time to Sow pics. Tal had always intended to keep it for his son Christian, but, as I have heard, everything has a price. For the sponsorship fee being agreed on, Tal had a bittersweet parting with this part of his legacy to his children and to the world of sport. Mr. Oto was elated and welcomed us as family. By the end of our visit we certainly felt like family. We were wined, dined, and showered with gifts. I was taken aback when we were even let in on the inner workings of VS and the state of play of a number of important deals they were working on, chief among which was a deal with Pacific Century CyberWorks Japan, which would create a joint venture. One evening at dinner, we were interrupted by an entourage of men in dark suits who stood at the entrance to our dining area. Mr. Oto looked up and beckoned one of them in. He came over, bowed, and opened a file that he laid in front of Mr. Oto. Mr. Oto signed a document in the file, closed it, and passed it back to the gentleman who bowed once again and left. Later I was to learn that it was the sale of shares to a third party worth millions of dollars that VS would use for further product development. I had only seen such things in the movies. The day of signing our agreement was a joyous one. My hand shook as I signed copies of the agreement. Only Tal noticed. At the end of the proceedings, we all hugged. I shook Mr. Oto’s hand firmly and thanked him. Within moments of the signing, Jonathan excused himself, Tal, and me from Mr. Oto’s office, knowing that he had business to deal with and not wanting us to overstay our welcome. That night we ate and laughed. After a few drinks, Jonathan tried to persuade Tal to make a comeback—with this sponsor145
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ship, he could now do what he had never been able to do but always dreamed of. Tal declined; it was someone else’s time now. “What about you, Chris?” Jonathan asked. “Sometimes, it’s better to be king-maker than king,” I answered. The night before leaving Tokyo, Tal and I watched a CNN business news story of how the bubble in the tech sector was about to pop. This we had expected for some time and we did not pay much attention to that market’s pending collapse. We left Tokyo with the understanding we would be returning from time to time to see about the business of VTB and VS. Our first scheduled return visit was in September for the VTB IPO. By the time we disembarked from our American Airlines flight to Kingston, we had designed a development plan for the bobsleigh program. Look upon a Shooting Star Trond was delighted by the news. Now he could get paid, always a touch-and-go situation. But more importantly, he could put his “success factors” in place. The program we agreed on was based on our expected cash flow over the next two years. We decided to cover the large fixed costs up front. We bought three new two-man bobsleighs from the Dresden factory in Germany. We constructed a push track at the local sports college, the G. C. Foster College for Sport and Physical Fitness. The plan was to use this track for local training and ultimately to host an international push competition. All athletes were put on financial support that allowed them to cover their basic liv-
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A Time to Sow ing expenses and therefore focus on training. An office with a secretariat was established to handle the daily affairs of the federation, and a new Web site was commissioned. We were in business. That summer we brought all the athletes into a training camp at G. C. Foster that lasted from June to the end of August. Trond immersed himself in his work and the athletes improved dramatically. Cognizant of the many interpersonal problems that could lie ahead, I brought in “transformation” specialists who were supposed to help our athletes know themselves better, get along better with each other, and ultimately perform better. Tal shook his head when I told him of this plan but did not object too strenuously. His only comment concerned a husband and wife that sat through such a program and got a divorce right after. I suggested to Trond that he might not want to go with Portia. He agreed. The program went ahead. The first event of the season was the World Push Championships in Monaco. It was here we won a gold and silver medal for the men and a gold medal for the women. Previously with excellent athletes but limited resources, we had struggled at this competition, with our best performance being a bronze in the four-man in 1995. Now we dominated the competition and were champions. Such is the power of money put to good use. The performance in Monaco dazed our competitors who knew we were a strong starting team but did not think we were the best in the world. The bobsleigh executive body received the news in Jamaica at a meeting—brought directly by Tal who had attended the push championships himself—with exuberance. At the end of the meeting, I warned that this was just the 147
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beginning, that ice training was just about to begin, and we would have a rough road ahead to the Olympics. At that moment, I sounded like a bit of a wet blanket, but time would reveal in fact how rough an experience we would have. Things Fall Apart From Monaco the team went to Lillehammer to continue its ice training. Once again tremendous tensions built up in the team. Trond felt that Winston was undermining the team and did not have a mature, positive attitude about the program. He appointed Wayne and Lascelles as team captains. This did little to help. Wayne, a man of sound judgment, led me to believe that on the other hand there was a general sense that Portia was exerting undue influence on Trond, compromising his judgment and acting as the de facto leader of the program. Winston, I knew, suffered from delusions of grandeur and had to be managed with a strong hand. This was Trond’s job, but Trond had not earned Winston’s respect and therefore his obedience. Still, if I were to step up to a bobsleigh starting line tomorrow, I would want Winston by my side. He will always show up and give one hundred percent. Apart from having to use the occasional rough language with him, I had no problem with Winston. The Portia situation was more complex. I am certain that Trond did his best to be even-handed, and the extent of Portia’s influence on his decision-making processes will never be fully known.
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A Time to Sow What is for sure, there grew a feeling, if not a fact, that she called many of the shots. The situation was made worse by the fact that Portia did not get along well with any of the women and most of the men. I was torn. By November 2000, the situation had become desperate. Winston and Wayne, our tried-and-true warriors, wanted to return to Jamaica. This was a sign to Tal something was not right. The interpersonal difficulties were complicated by the fact that, after receiving two payments from VS/VTB on time, the third was late and for half the amount due. This created serious financial problems for the athletes and for the coach, who had to delve into his personal resources to keep the training going. This situation only added to tensions. When in that same month Mark Hill, a first-year driver, crashed and lost his helmet, which resulted in the skin on his face being ripped up to his hairline above his forehead, we decided to bring the athletes home until funding resumed. I was reluctant to make that decision because up until that point, we had not participated in any FIBT races, which meant we had not begun our Olympic qualification process based on the 5-3-2 rule. But funds were low and spirits were lower. We needed to regroup and try again. Where’s the Cheese? At least three times a day every working day for three weeks, we checked our account to see if the funds had been wired into it. There was no money. We called Jonathan and asked if we had misunderstood the amount due on the last payment. He said no, the amount was deliberately cut in 149
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half because the IPO had to be delayed following the collapse of the tech sector market, first in the US and then in Japan. Further, Japan was sinking deeper and deeper into recession. Funding, he said, would resume once things settled down and the IPO was once again on track, but he could not say when that would be. It was good to find out what was going on, but we still had a program to run and no funds. Around that time Denise, Tal’s wife, gave me a copy of Who Moved My Cheese? An A-Mazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life by Spencer Johnson. The delightful story in this book has been of immeasurable help to me in dealing with losing the biggest piece of cheese the federation has ever had. Keep Hope Alive Despite the difficulties, we had to find a way to finish the season. We were able to bring funds that were due from Fiat as part of a sponsorship arrangement forward from April, when they were due, to January. This allowed us to do a limited amount of sliding for the second half of the 1999-2000 season. The women’s team was our priority and as such it got first share of the funding. This enabled them to participate in the Women’s World Championships in Calgary where they finished a creditable eighteenth position. They then went on to Park City where they finished twenty-first and eighteenth respectively in two world cup races.
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A Time to Sow The women’s program remained our great hope for the Olympics, and solid performances despite a lack of ice time gave us reason to believe that with more ice time including races, we would be looking at a shot at a medal. The men had a more difficult time. After sending off the women, we could not afford to send a men’s four-man team to race. We therefore sent a two-man team of Winston Watt and Lascelles Brown to Calgary, Alberta to compete in the world cup. We knew this was risky since Winston had not completed the number of races over the number of seasons required for participation in a world cup event, but we hoped that the jury would give him some leeway since he was an experienced bobsleigher and competent driver. We were wrong. At the team captains’ meeting, Winston was informed the team would not be allowed to participate in the race the next day. This was serious. If we could not race there, then we would have gone through the entire season without competing in an FIBT sanctioned race and could therefore have no chance of qualifying for the Olympics. I spent most of that night with Winston on the phone figuring out what to do. We had to find a way to give ourselves a chance to stay alive and to fight another day. At the last moment, the day was saved by our godfather Sepp Haidacher who was a member of the jury. Sepp made the suggestion that the Continental Championships could be held concurrently with the world cup race. There was authorization from the FIBT for a continental championships, which pitted teams from the Caribbean and Americas against each other, and there was also precedence for the competition to be run concurrently with the world cup race 151
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in the same way that the European championships are run within a world cup race. His suggestion was accepted and the team was allowed to participate. I was grateful to Sepp but felt like a child who had grown up but refused to leave home and make it on his own. During that race, which had the best teams in the world competing, Winston and Lascelles posted the best starting time. It was for me a glimmer of hope. Still No Cheese Within two months of the end of the bobsleigh season, it became clear that we would not be receiving any more funds from the VS/VTB arrangement in time to help us. For the next ten months we were unable to pay Trond. Still, to his credit, he continued coaching with energy and with fervor because he believed in the cause. When we received a US $25,000 sponsorship from an international call center company, Sitel, which had an operation in Jamaica, we dedicated the entire amount to covering Trond’s rent and part of his living expenses. Still he lived practically broke in a strange land. Portia was not pleased. That summer, the training camp was a shadow of what it had been the year before. Athlete support had to be curtailed resulting in additional pressure on the athletes who, to their credit, except for Winston, showed up for training, worked hard, and never once complained. I was proud of them. As the start of the season approached, we still had not received any sponsorships. I had been in dialogue with
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A Time to Sow John Ivey of Global Strategies Group, a Boston-based advertising agencythat represented Seagram’s, to enter into a sponsorship arrangement with their Captain Morgan brand. It was a tricky situation. I needed J. Wray and Nephew to understand our situation if we had to get into this deal. After all, we had a long relationship and had always been able to call on them. I felt some reluctance toward entering into an arrangement with their competitor regardless of how badly we needed the money. Then I needed to tread carefully since the FIBT forbade the advertising of spirits on sleds in FIBT competitions. Despite the challenges, I felt I had a way to make it all work. I would never have the opportunity to demonstrate this. John called me and told me that the program was being downsized and that the US bobsleigh team, which was also to be in the promotion, was being cut but we were still in for US $150,000. I had a strange discomfort. Some days later he called and said that the amount to us had been cut to US $100,000, and that there may be further revisions. My discomfort turned to pain. When John called again on my cell phone as I dropped my daughter off at her ballet class, I had a sense of what was coming. Seagram’s was being acquired by Diagio, and the entire winter promotional campaign was being scrapped. I felt nothing. John apologized and promised to help when he could. I thanked him. Over the previous eighteen months, the federation had secured the services of Anders Vestergaard, who had posted significant success in the past raising funds for bobsleigh teams, to act as an agent on our behalf. Anders committed himself to the task, but after countless man153
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hours and over two hundred company contacts, he had not been able to secure a sponsorship. He speculated many potential sponsors did not want to seem un-American by supporting another country’s team at the Games held in the US. If this national sentiment existed early on, it must have exploded with coming events. As the winter approached, we hoped to see the traditional surge in interest in sponsorship but even that was not to be, as the downturn in the US economy was sent into a spiral by the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center twin towers and the Pentagon. Broke, scared, and turning inwards, we could not expect any substantial commitment from US companies, though the resiliency of the American corporate spirit gave me reason to hope. Turning in and Heading Out I stopped reading my copy of Who Moved My Cheese? and took more practical advice from an old Jamaican saying, “When trouble tek man pickney boot fit him.” If the dollars could not fit the program, then the program would have to fit the dollars. Our grand ambition was to field two two-man teams, a four-man team, and a two-woman team in the Olympics. Faced with the possibility of not having any, we set out to prioritize our efforts with funds that had been provided by the Jamaica Tourist Board. Winston was shocked and felt “dissed,” I suppose, as I broke the news to the team—the women were our number one priority and would receive funding first. Next would be Winston’s two-man team, then the four-man team, and then
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A Time to Sow Mark Hill’s two-man team. Mark had by this time fully recovered from his horrendous injuries and was eager to go. He’ll be a winner. Out, Out Trond left with Portia for Norway at the beginning of the Olympic season. The women had to finish in the top fifteen sleds in the world cup standings with a maximum of two sleds per nation to qualify for the Olympics. This was a tall order but with an eighteenth-place finish in the World Championships the previous year, I felt they could make it. At his departure, we still had not secured the funding we hoped for from the JTB and time was not on our side. After many anxious days, the funds were received and Portia prepared to participate in the first women’s world cup race in Winterberg. Trond’s intention was to have a respectable showing at Winterberg, stay within striking distance of the pack, and then gradually improve to finishes good enough for the team to qualify by the third or fourth track. This was not to be. After successfully completing six training runs, Portia crashed in the first race on November 10 and did not cross the finish line. The team was therefore disqualified. The following day the team crashed on both runs but crossed the finish line on both occasions and ended in twenty-sixth position. The injuries suffered by Portia meant that she would miss the following world cup race in Königssee, Germany. As it stood at the end of Winterberg, she would face an uphill struggle to qualify. Tal and I discussed bringing the women home at that point but decided to support 155
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them to the bitter end. They had earned that privilege. But with the news that Portia would have to miss Königssee, it was clear she could no longer qualify for the Games. The women’s team had progressed faster and done better than the men’s team. They were articulate and personable. The press loved them for who they were and what they represented. Of a dozen or so requests we got each month for interviews with athletes, ten were for the women. Through her own instrumentality, Portia had been the subject of an extensive media campaign in Jamaica featuring the women’s team and Portia Morgan. She was an orchestrated star and I supported it. It was good for the sport and good for Portia. I entertained great hopes of participating in the creation of Cool Runnings II based on the story of the women’s team and their march to Olympic glory. This time, of course, we would make sure we made more money from the film. Still, sport respects no man, or for that matter no woman, and feels no obligation to the dreams and aspirations of the athlete. Months of preparation, training, competition, and all the buildup of the press were lost in a moment. The dream was gone. There would be no Jamaica bobsleigh women’s team in the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City. I found my copy of Who Moved My Cheese? and started reading it again.
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A Time to Sow A Real Force Two weeks later Winston took to the same track, Winterberg, to compete in the Europa cup race there. Trond had indicated previously that he could not work with Winston, as he had said earlier about Antonette. This time, however, I made it clear that Winston would be in the program for the future. Trond would have to decide if and how he could continue in the program with that fact in mind. Notwithstanding his feelings toward working with Winston, Trond remained in Winterberg after the women’s race to help the men, but he said that afterward he would return to Norway to help Portia with her rehabilitation and preparation for the next season. My mind could not extend past Salt Lake. He and Portia also planned to move to Norway. This, coupled with the known fact that Winston preferred to keep his distance from both Portia and Trond, led to the inevitable conclusion that Trond would not be continuing with the team to the Games. This he confirmed to me. His intention was to focus on developing Portia’s future as a driver. Some would say this was his focus all along. While Trond had lost credibility with the athletes, he was loved and respected by those athletes whom he recruited and worked with through thick and thin. He had given his all in a most difficult and stressful situation but had come to the end of his tether. As I expected, he offered to be of assistance to the program in the future. I am sure to take him up on that offer. Tal was not unduly put out by Trond’s departure and in fact thought it was the best thing under the circumstances. The
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men’s team was alive and well and proving to be a real force. Tal decided to take over coaching responsibilities himself and made arrangements to send Wayne to Calgary to help with those races, and to join Wayne and the team in Lake Placid for a series of three America cup races in both the two- and four-man events. These moves led to the most harmonious period on the road for the team in over two years but would itself become bittersweet. Winston and Lascelles finished in twelfth position in the Winterberg race after posting the fastest start time. Jamaica beat French, Swiss, Dutch, Austrian, and American teams. It is perhaps our best two-man finish to date. Still hurting from the disappointment of the women, I found hope in the performance of the men. I prepared myself to be heckled by Winston for treating the women’s team with greater priority. By the end of the two-man America’s cup race in Lake Placid on December 10, Winston had qualified for the Olympics in fine style, securing over twice the amount of points required, and winning the second two-man race in Lake Placid along the way. The unfortunate demise of the women’s team for the Olympic season meant sufficient funds were now available to field a four-man team to attempt to qualify for the Games. Its first stop was Calgary. The four-man team competed in two America’s cup races there, finishing in fourth position in the first and second position in the second. We seemed to be off to an easy qualification here as well. Having already secured forty-four points from Calgary, the team needed only sixteen more points, which they would
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A Time to Sow get even if they finished last in each of the three upcoming races at Lake Placid. At that point the team would have had five races on two tracks, where only three tracks are required for Olympic qualification. The plan was for them to race in Cortina, Italy—a particularly dangerous proposition—in January to secure the number of tracks. This we saw as the only obstacle to qualification. There was, of course, the small matter that we had not competed in the four-man in the previous season so would not have qualified over two seasons as is the commonly accepted interpretation of the FIBT’s 5-3-2 rule. But we were prepared to do the races and the tracks, get our points, and make our case in Park City if anyone objected to our participation. All our projections and strategizing would prove academic as Winston inexplicably crashed in turn eighteen in the first two races, after leading the field up to the crash. The sled did not cross the finish line in either race, which meant that the team was disqualified. We needed those races to qualify for the Olympics. The crashes meant Jamaica would not participate in the Olympic Games in the event for which it is best known, the four-man bobsleigh. By the time the Salt Lake City Games approached, my own attitude was that however well or poorly the team did—win, lose, or draw—they would have been survivors and perhaps even conquerors of a brutal and unforgiving season and turn of events.
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Chapter 8 The Fire Within Having Put Shoulders to the Plow The United States of America last hosted the Olympic Winter Games in 1980 in Lake Placid, twenty-two years before Salt Lake City, though many of the memories from those Games seem so recent. The Salt Lake Organizing Committee (SLOC) was determined to earn the normal expected accolade from the president of the International Olympic Committee during the closing ceremonies—as having organized the best Games ever—just before inviting the youth of the world to gather again four years hence. Olympic organizing committees over the years have always been faced with difficult challenges, which they have, for the most part, been able to overcome. SLOC’s challenges, however, were to be public and complex. Two blows threatened to derail the committee’s efforts.
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The first was the bribery scandal surrounding the selection of Salt Lake as the host city for the Games. As a person exposed to the US business culture as well as the business culture of much of the rest of the world, I have not been as harsh as some in concluding corruption on the part of Salt Lake City. I recognize from daily interaction there is a vast gray area in these matters where bribery and courtesy are blended into an indecipherable blob, and it is often up to the person looking on, as if looking at a painting, to interpret what this all means to him. We all look at the same thing but see different things, because in a sense we all look through lenses crafted from our culture, experiences, and expectations. The intention of the giver of a gift and the interpretation of the expected action by the receiver of the gift are often quite different. Further, the understanding of the interchange by someone looking on may be different from that of the parties directly involved. It is because of the complexities of these exchanges, and the exposure to the appearance if not the fact of “buying” votes to host the Games, that the IOC has acted properly if not belatedly in declaring as unacceptable any action that may be interpreted as delivering benefits in exchange for votes. The IOC came under intense scrutiny and was the subject of considerable criticism during this period. Many closets were opened and skeletons came tumbling out. At one point, Salt Lake City did not look so bad after all. The controversy spread to other sporting organizations, most notably the international governing body for soccer, FIFA, that had its own internal accusations and counteraccusa-
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The Fire Within tions. Salt Lake City was not merely faced with criticism and embarrassment but was also faced with corruption investigations by a variety of US law enforcement agencies. The governor of Utah put it best in saying that Salt Lake City was not the first bidding city to do what it did, but it should be the last. To my own mind, this is the city’s most important and hopefully its most enduring contribution to the legacy of the Olympic movement. The terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon a mere five months before the Games were scheduled to open cast not a shadow, but black clouds of doubt over whether or not the Games could be responsibly staged. To its credit, SLOC was determined to proceed, and they must have been encouraged by the actions, attitude, and words of President Bush who insisted that the Games must go on. Battered but no worse for the wear, SLOC staged the opening of the nineteenth Olympic Winter Games at the Rice Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City. In his speech at the opening ceremonies, IOC president Jacques Rogge, directing his remarks particularly to the American people, said: “Your nation is overcoming a horrific tragedy, a tragedy that affected the whole world. We stand united with you in the promotion of our common ideals, in a hope for world peace.” Later, President George Bush would declare, “On behalf of a proud, determined, and grateful nation, I declare open the Games of Salt Lake City, celebrating the Olympic Winter Games.” A child with a lantern led the Olympic flag bearers into the stadium. Carrying the Olympic flag were Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, former Polish President Lech Walesa, Japanese ski jump gold medalist Kazuyoshi 163
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Funaki, Australian track–and-field 400-meter gold medalist from the 2000 Summer Games Cathy Freeman, and senator and astronaut John Glenn. They were shortly followed by the regal entry into the stadium of the “Ground Zero” flag, borne by New York City firemen, which once hung in obscurity at the World Trade Center. The symbolism was poignant—world solidarity and triumph out of tragedy. Based on our personal professional obligations, both Tal and I decided not to attend the opening ceremonies of the Games ourselves but to join the team in time for two-man training and then to leave after that event. I watched the opening ceremonies for the Games from the comfort of my home as I had done in 1988. It was beautiful and I wished I were there—until my recollection of being near frostbitten as I carried the flag in Lillehammer tempered my intense desire to be there. I was to learn later that the temperature was not that cold, being just below zero, not as cold as the days before or the days after. The moderate temperature, mild winds, and light snowfall created an atmosphere that the best Hollywood set producers would have envied. It was perfect. The opening show was splendid and inspirational. For its two-and-a-half hour duration the show highlighted the drive, will, and determination of Olympic athletes, the Olympic movement, and indeed the human spirit, as we all, in our own way, seek to live out the theme of the Games, to “Light the Fire Within.” As I watched the show, I waited with anxiety as the athletes of the various nations marched into the stadium to po-
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The Fire Within lite applause. As soon as I heard Italy, I sat at the edge of the chair. Jamaica would be next. Would the world still remember us? Would they still admire us and want to cheer us on? Were we still stars? As soon as Jamaica was announced, the entire stadium erupted into cheers. I had my answers. The cameras focused on Winston carrying the Jamaican national flag into the stadium. I thought back to the young soldier I saw for the first time at Up Park camp and my eyes welled up with tears. I was pleased for
him. I was proud of us. Sometime later as the US team entered the stadium, I could not discern whether or not they received greater applause than we did. It confirmed to me what I had long suspected, that the Jamaica Bobsleigh Team has been adopted by enthusiasts the world over, as their own. As soon as the members of the legendary 1980 US Olympic ice hockey team lit the Olympic flame in its caldron, I got up from my chair and called Tal. When he answered, I told him, “I hope you’ve packed. It’s show time.” From the moment I landed at the Salt Lake City International Airport, I knew that the Games would be a success. Why? Because of the enthusiasm, work ethic, and initiative of the volunteers. Anyone in the know will tell you. Volunteers can make or break a Games, and for me at least, the volunteers at the airport set the tone for a fantastic experience. I had missed my connecting flight on American Airlines from Dallas to Salt Lake City and had to switch airlines, which meant that the information that the volunteers had on my airline, flight number, and arrival time was all wrong. 165
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I would be on a different airline and would arrive over an hour and a half later than originally scheduled. As I stepped off the flight in Salt Lake City, I was greeted by Salt Lake City Department of Airports Police Officer Daniel Joy and two SLOC volunteers.
“Good evening, Mr. Stokes. Glad you made it,” he began, with a broad smile and outstretched hand. Before I could respond I was greeted by the entire party and relieved of my carry-on luggage. As we walked to the luggage claim area, I learned that when it became clear that I was not on the scheduled flight, they called the airlines to find out which flight I was on and when I would be arriving, then proceeded to ensure that I would be appropriately greeted and assisted to my hotel. I was impressed. Drama, Thrills and Agony Figure skating is one of those events which I have a difficult time thinking of as a sport but which I thoroughly enjoy watching. I have similar feelings about the sport of curling which was a demonstration event in 1988 but a medal event in 2002. At first exposure, one is tempted to ask, “What is going on here?” as I asked. But within short order I found myself actually looking forward to watching curling and caught up in its drama. However, the on- and off-ice drama of figure skating was to dominate the Games. It has been described as the biggest scandal in the history of the Olympic Winter Games. As I watched Canadians Jamie Sale and David Pelletier skate in the pairs event, it seemed to my untrained eye that they were the gold 166
The Fire Within medalists, especially since their major rivals, Russian pair Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze, seemed to have some difficulty in their routine. I was not particularly surprised when the Russians won since I did not really know what to look for, and their country had won every pairs skating medal since 1964. The Canadians had, however, won nine consecutive international events leading up to this Olympic competition. Skating enthusiasts expected a keenly contested affair but not controversy. Controversy, however, raged over the decision, which confirmed my own preference for sport where performances are measurable and verifiable in absolute quantitative terms. You cannot complete a bobsleigh run in a slower time than other competitors and beat them. The fastest time wins; it’s as simple and as undisputable as that. Indeed, David Pelletier, who demonstrated grace under fire during ensuing events, commented at a news conference, “If I didn’t want this to happen to me, I would go down the hill on skis.” Judging is part and parcel of skating and open to abuse. The French judge in the event, Marie-Reine Le Gouge, said she was pressured by Didier Gailhaguet, president of the French Skating Union, into putting the Russians first as part of an arrangement to help the French win the ice dancing event, which, if true, was totally unnecessary because the French favorites, Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat, won the gold medal convincingly. Days after her first allegations, Le Gouge said that she was not, in fact, pressured. The situation was resolved, in a manner of speaking, when the Canadian pair was also awarded gold medals. 167
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While perhaps the correct thing to do, the decision raises all kinds of issues which are best explored elsewhere, including the resolution of past skating controversies such as that of Linda Fratianne, whose loss of the gold medal in 1980 to East German Anett Potzsch remains inexplicable to this day. As part of the announcement to award these two gold medals, the International Skating Union president Ottavio Cinquanta proposed a set of reforms designed to prevent a recurrence of similar controversies. I felt pain for Michelle Kwan in 1998 as she was surpassed by a superior performance by Tara Lipinski to take the gold medal. Most commentators and enthusiasts expected the gold to be Kwan’s, despite the fact that Lipinski entered the Games as world champion. It was clearly Lipinski’s night but I remember thinking, Next time, Michelle, next time. Before I knew it that next time was here. Michelle Kwan entered the final program of the competition in the lead, while fellow American Sarah Hughes was just out of the medals in fourth position. Kwan made two major mistakes that ended up putting her in third position behind Irina Slutskaya of Russia. It was Sarah Hughes, a sixteen-year-old New Yorker, who came through in stunning fashion to win the gold. “I skated for pure enjoyment,” she was to say, and it showed. Of everything that happened in Salt Lake City, this was the closest to a fairy tale.
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The Fire Within There was perhaps no greater symbolism during the entire Games of the drive and desire of the athlete for Olympic glory than Apolo Anton Ohno’s heroics at the end of the 1,000-meter short track speed skating event. Leading the field and negotiating the last turn on the track that lay between him and Olympic gold, he was suddenly sliding on his back into the sideboards, crashing into other competitors and, in the process, sustaining an cut to his left leg. Unwilling to lie on his back and commiserate over his injuries, the warrior Ohno propelled himself forward in a desperate lunge toward the finish line, crawling a part of the way before swinging his injured leg across the finish line to take the silver medal. In a twist of fate, Australia’s Steven Bradbury, who was in last place when the crash occurred, cruised through the finish line unencumbered to take the gold. He made it to the finals because another skater was disqualified in the semi-finals. It was Australia’s first Winter Olympics gold medal ever. Indeed, while there is life, there is hope. Ohno was himself to go on to win gold in the 1,500meter event after South Korean Kim Dong-Sung was disqualified after crossing the line first. I was strongly inspired by David Parra, who at age 31 entered the Games as a relative unknown and, reaping the results of extended intensive training before the Games, was able to win a silver in the 5,000-meter speed skating and a gold in the 1,500-meter event, shattering the world record in the process. These developments were all important to me since I could see and feel what is possible through hard work, dedication, and a bit of good fortune, important inputs to 169
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Jamaica’s bobsleigh program. It was in the bobsleigh events, though, where I drew my greatest inspiration. I was there in 1988 when the US four-man bobsleigh team driven by Brent Rushlaw with one Brian Shimer on his crew, missed the bronze medal by two-hundredths of a second. I’ve witnessed firsthand the disappointments, trials, and errors of that program, so I was pleased to see its success. My tracking of the US bobsleigh program confirms to me that, indeed, sustained effort will yield its reward and encourages me to carry on with the struggle that is Jamaica bobsleigh. After missing the bronze medal by threehundredths of a second in the two-man event, Todd Hays and two-man ninth-place-finisher Brian Shimer returned in the four-man event to break a forty-six-year bobsleighmedal drought for the USA. Not since Arthur Tyler and his teammates slid to bronze in Cortina, has an American stood on the bobsleigh medal podium. Hays’s crew was Randy Jones, Bill Schuffenhauer, and brakeman Garrett Hines, while Shimer’s crew was Mike Kohn, Doug Sharp, and brakeman Dan Steele. Hines and Jones are the first black men to win Winter Olympic medals for the USA. They both yielded the honor of being the first African-American to win a Winter medal to Vonetta Flowers, who won gold as part of the US women’s bobsleigh team piloted by Jill Bakken. Still, despite the substantial achievement and progress of the US bobsleigh program, the Germans, led by the youngster Andre Lange, slid away with the gold medal, leaving the silver for Hays and the bronze for Shimer.
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The Fire Within Shimer had a disappointing performance in 1992 even while being pushed by Heisman Trophy winner and USFL and NFL running back Herschel Walker. In 1994, he was disqualified in the four-man because of “hot” runners and in 1998, he was embroiled in a quagmire of accusations and counteraccusations surrounding drug use, yet he went on to perform well, missing the bronze medal by an agonizing two-hundredths of a second. It was doubtful whether or not he would even make the US team for Salt Lake City. So when heading into the last run of the race, Shimer was in fourth position, behind the Swiss powerhouse and world champion Martin Annen, and the feeling grew that if he finished in fourth, he would have done extraordinarily well. But Shimer had other ideas. On the last run of the event, Shimer beat Lange, Hays, and Annen to finish in first place by enough to “leapfrog” him in front of Annen in the overall standings and onto the medal podium. The entire bobsleigh fraternity rejoiced for him, a sixteen-year bobsleigh warrior. His brakeman put it best: “He’s the guy who shouldn’t have made the team this year, but sometimes real life is even better than any kind of Hollywood script you can write.” I had detected a hint of the popularity of the Jamaica Bobsleigh Team during the opening ceremony but was to gain a new appreciation for the team’s appeal over the course of the Games. Nowhere was this more evident than at our merchandise store on Main Street in Park City. From open to close, the store was packed from wall to wall with patrons, admirers, and well-wishers. The line to get into the 171
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store often extended a block up the road, and our merchandise contractor Anders Vestergaard did a brisk business in merchandise sales. Those athletes who were on the fourman team and would not be competing at the Games, were rotated on a punishing schedule of autograph signing and interacting with fans. For a break, we would go up to the Coca-Cola™ house where one day we had the pleasure of meeting Evander Holyfield. He was a much better conversationalist than Mike Tyson. The team could not walk down the street without being stopped for a photograph or autograph at every step. The media pressed for interview opportunities, and over two dozen interviews were done during the first week of the Olympics from six or so different nations. The most notable on our part was an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, which was filmed in Park City with comedian Dave Chapelle. A segment previously filmed with the Today show was aired twice during the Games. Winston and Lascelles became frustrated with the hectic media schedule and requested a media block out which I promptly denied. While I was careful for the training and competition schedule not to be affected by interviews, they needed to be done and done with enthusiasm and a warm Jamaican smile. “These guys,” I explained, “give us the exposure that helps us secure sponsorships.” I suppose at that time they could have asked, “What sponsorship?” but they didn’t. Ever since we were practically ignored in La Plagne and I came face-to-face with the possibility of the program being snuffed out because of lack of exposure, I’ve given priority to the media.
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The Fire Within On the track things went at once well and badly. Our goal going into the two-man event was simple: have the fastest start and hold on for a top-ten finish. Neither would prove simple. During training, we did a start time of 4.90 seconds which was the second fastest. We felt we were well on track to having the fastest start time. According to Tal’s calculations, we should have been the fastest starting team by two-tenths of a second. Since the track was relatively short, we figured that if we started first we had a good chance of finishing in the top ten sleds, but this was just not happening. Even with our comparatively fast starts in training, we were still finishing in the high twenties. Such results were discouraging and frustrating. We started to experiment with runners, trying different sets on different runs, but none resulted in a marked improvement. We studied the lines that Winston was driving and concluded that they were not the best but were good, certainly good enough to not have a collapse in position during the course of the run. Still the collapse continued. Winston would start with the second fastest time, and by the third timing eye he would be in sixteenth position and in twenty-seventh or twenty-eighth position by the end of the run. We continued perplexed. During one lively debate at the end of another disappointing day’s training, Wayne Thomas suggested that our other two-man sled, the one previously used by our female driver Portia Morgan, was a faster sled than the one being used now. He posited as evidence of his assertion the fact that Winston set all new personal records at the track in Calgary while training with Portia’s sled. Plus he was beating the Irish team by several tenths of a second in training, 173
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while here at the Olympics in another sled, the Irish were comfortably ahead of us with their seasoned pilot Pat O’Donahue. During the discussion, someone said that we should rule out the option of using Portia’s sled. The one we were now using was already painted in the national colors for the race, and Portia’s sled was on display in front of the Wyoming house in Park City. I could not believe my ears. I was not about to have suffered so long and to have come so far to lose our shot at a decent Olympic performance simply because the sled that could do it was not pretty enough and was being used for a display. I ignored the comment. However, it was Tal’s considered opinion as the technical expert that the answer lay in the weight of the sled and the selection of runners. Going into the race we decided to add ten kilograms of weight to the sled. The thinking was that by getting the sled up to weight, we would still achieve the fastest start time and yet be able to gain in our sled speed and ultimately improve our finish time. We tried this the last day of training with limited improvement. All we could hope for going into the race was that the runner selection would make a considerable difference. Tal, Wayne, and I stood together discussing how things might go in the race and what else we could have tried if we had the resources. One of the things that came up was that we simply did not have enough runners to choose from, but we concluded we could not afford to buy the range of runners needed at this level. Just then FIBT president Bob Storey walked up with IOC president Jacques Rogge and introduced us by saying: “These guys do the
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The Fire Within best job with the least money.” This I will accept as true, but it is of little comfort when you have to send your athletes into competition with inferior equipment. On the first day of the race the team posted start times of 4.84 seconds and 4.83 seconds respectively for the two runs. The start times were the fourth fastest, and our down times left us in twenty-seventh position. We were achieving neither of our objectives. At this juncture, we considered that we could no longer realistically secure a top-ten finish. However, the opportunity to set the start record was still very much within our grasp, and we decided to focus on it. This decided, we removed the additional ten kilograms of weight from the sled and went to the starting line on the second day intending to set the track record for the start. The first start time on that day was 4.81 seconds, onehundredth behind the track record and the fastest start for the day. During the final run, the Swiss driver Martin Annen, fighting for an Olympic medal, started in 4.79 seconds, thereby setting a new start record. This was the new standard. As I sat with Lascelles Brown in the start house fifteen minutes before the team’s final run, he said to me: “I’ve been telling all my thugs that I am the fastest bobsleigh pusher in world. I can’t go home without proving it.” Then he picked up his helmet and headed for the start line. In all the previous runs, I had gone to the bottom of the track to help the athletes at the finish, and I watched the start and run on the closed-circuit television. This time I remained at the top of the track with Tal. I wanted to see this start for myself. Standing off at a distance we heard when the track was declared clear for Jamaica I. This was it. 175
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For thirty seconds we stared with great anticipation at the start, listening to the shouted commands of the athletes as they set up the synchronization of the push. I have heard the cliché “Like a bat out of hell” before and perhaps have used it. But that evening I understood its full meaning. Winston and Lascelles shot from the starting blocks and down the track as if running on air with legs blurred in rapid rotation. As quickly as they emerged from the blocks, they disappeared down the run. Tal and I strained to see the start time on the clock above the start house but could not see it from where we were standing. As we maneuvered ourselves into position to see the start time, the crowd erupted in cheers and applause. Simultaneously the announcer declared with great excitement: “Start time for Jamaica I, 4.78 seconds. A new track record.” I held my breath in anxiety until a finish time showed up on the clock that indicated the team finished the run and therefore the new start record would hold. I was to find out later, it was Winston’s worst drive but he got the sled down and we took the track record. Both Winston and Lascelles were presented with nicely framed certificates for their accomplishment. Many nights in my dreams, I had imagined that Winston and Lascelles would be holding Olympic medals at the end of the final day of competition. This was not to be. Certificates would have to do…for now.
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Part III Cornerstones
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Chapter 9 Desire Want but More The genesis of success is desire. This is as true in sports as it is in business, academia, and relationships. This truth is made particularly clear when the success sought is challenging beyond the ordinary. How often have you heard, in business, the explanation or comment that one company won out over another in a contract bid because they wanted it more, or one person got a job and another didn’t because the person who got the job wanted it more? And how often in sports have you heard commentators praise the winners as the team wanting victory more than its opponents? This is often cited and expressed in knock-down-drag-out football games, tennis matches, and boxing contests. While these business observers and sport commentators may refer to “wanting more,” what they more accurately mean is that the successful company, person, or team had more desire. Participants want, winners desire. To desire
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something is not just to want it, but rather it is that and so much more. Wanting something has no place in high achievement. Certainly one may want to go to the movies, want to read a book, want to have ice cream. Indeed, even beyond the mundane, one may want to sky dive, rock climb, write a book, transform a business, or become an Olympic bobsledder. Merely wanting, though, inevitably leaves you as a spectator in the armchair of life, because it allows you to do only those things that are easily achievable. Wanting is a thought, it is registered in the head; desire is a feeling, its home is in the heart. Wanting something suggests action; it does not inspire it. Wanting is negotiable while desire is compulsory. Want allows us to do the ordinary; desire empowers us to achieve the extraordinary. It is passion that converts lifeless want into hot-blooded desire. During the selection process to choose the first Jamaica Bobsleigh Team, George Fitch gathered the nearly forty aspirants in a room after the physical tests were complete. There was no doubt by this time the vast majority of participants in the trials had the physical potential to be bobsleigh athletes at a high level, maybe even world class. Indeed, as is often the case with foreign coaches visiting Jamaica, the bobsleigh coaches from the United States who came to Kingston to conduct their standard athlete selection tests at the national stadium were impressed with the quality of athletes trying out. The fact that the athletes were there showed they wanted to try the sport, although this assumption would not hold in the cases of a few Jamaica Defense Force athletes who were there under instructions from
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Colonel Ken Barnes. For the most part, those at the trials wanted to try the sport, some admittedly more than others. Sitting in a room, then, with close to forty capable athletes with a want, George Fitch spent about five minutes explaining what the sport was all about, that it involved going downhill on ice at high speeds with the distinct possibility of crashing. At the end of his talk, George asked if, based on what he had said, anyone would like to withdraw from consideration for the sport. Several of the participants left the room—these were the low-level “wanters” and the few who never really wanted to be there anyway. After this, George turned off the lights and showed some vintage footage of bobsleigh crashes when the sleds may not have been as fast but the tracks were nowhere as safe as they are today. The crashes were particularly horrendous, with the sleds flying out of the tracks at a tangent from the corners and bodies flying everywhere. One could not be quite sure who survived—and if so, in what condition—or who died. When George switched back on the lights, we had lost half of those who survived the first round. They were those who really wanted to try but not that badly. What remained for George was a group of athletes with the physical capability to do well at the sport, but more importantly, he had athletes with a desire to try. Flame of Desire I stood in the stands of the arena used for the opening ceremonies of the seventeenth Winter Olympiad in Lillehammer, Norway, surrounded by my teammates and by fel-
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Cool Runnings and Beyond low athletes from around the world. There is camaraderie among athletes at this level that is hard to explain. In a sense, I suppose it is comparable to what comrades in arms, or a graduating class, or support groups for cancer patients may feel, and that is a felt knowledge of what it takes to be where you are and a deep understanding of the struggles along the way. This is the tie that binds world-class athletes, especially Olympians. As we stood there in brotherhood, the highlight of the evening, and the thing that warmed my heart, though my body was exposed to all the ferocity of the frigid Norwegian winter, was the lighting of the flame. At the top of the ski jump several hundred meters in front of us sat a lone figure sideways with the Olympic torch in hand. In an instant, the torchbearer jumped and made a ninety-degree turn from his sitting position, and at once crouched in a ski-jumping position as he gathered speed heading down the jump directly toward us. I wondered for a moment if his speed or jump would eventually blow out the flame. At the bottom of the jump, he leaped through the air in a classic sky jump posture except for the hand that held the flame high. He landed and skated off to the roar of the crowd. The torch flickered but did not go out. He went on to light the Olympic flame that was to burn for fourteen days. Each of us must carry that torch inside of us so we may light a flame here and there in our lives, and in the lives of others. This flame may flicker but should never die. This torch inside us is our desire.
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Desire Pervasive Force Desire is a pervasive force. It takes up your thoughts, your feelings, and your energy. When one truly desires something, it has the potential of literally taking over that person’s life. The person eats, sleeps, dreams, and thinks of the thing he desires most. As we will see, this may cause problems, and there are many who will preach about balance in life, which is essential, but the truth is that those who become best at a thing are those who desire it and live it. Lascelles Brown had joined the team in 1999, invited by Winston Watt, from the town of May Pen in Clarendon where they both lived. Lascelles worked in an abattoir twice per week where he would carry cow carcasses on his back from one place to the other. He did not get very far with a secondary education, and this to him was what life was to be. He knew he could do better but was not sure how. Within a year of being in the bobsleigh program, it became clear he was the best athlete ever to be in the program and perhaps the best pusher in the world. Tal said it to me first but I just brushed it off. He was not a typical bobsleigh-looking athlete at five feet seven inches tall and weighing 190 pounds. He seemed more comfortable walking on his hands, as he often does, than walking on his feet. Yet he was muscular and fast. His speed is deceptive because he tends to drag his feet along the ground, which does not give the observer a sense of speed but of an awkward skip.
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Still the clock would not lie. His short-sprint times were the best of any athlete in the history of the program, including my own times, bearing in mind I was Jamaica’s high school sprint champion and a scholarship athlete in track and field. Within a month of Coach Knaplund taking up coaching duties in Jamaica, he was singing Lascelles’s praises and confirming what Tal had said at first. Within two years, Lascelles won two world push championships in the two-man event and had the fastest start times in all of the races he entered. This man from May Pen, who spent his time throwing up dead cows on his back at a time when his competitors were clean and jerking and snatching barbells laden with weights, went on to turn in the fastest start in the two-man at the Salt Lake City Games. Talent is necessary but not sufficient. I understood for the first time what was inside of the man when, due to a series of unfortunate events and perhaps a little overreaction on my part, I had to bring him up on a disciplinary matter. After reviewing the matter at hand, I said to him that his punishment would be to miss the next promotional event for the team, usually a fun thing for our athletes. Lascelles went stone-cold and silent. Then he said, with fear in his voice, “Am I still on the team?” I was taken aback since I had never contemplated him not being on the team. “Of course,” I said. “We just need to get this unfortunate incident behind us and move on to the business at hand.” At least that was what was in my head to say, but before I could get the words out of my mouth I got a glimpse into the heart of a champion.
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Desire “Mr. Stokes,” he said, “bobsleigh has given me a life. It is all I know and all I want to know. When I go to bed at night, I think about standing at the starting line in Park City, and when I fall asleep I dream about going down the run. When I wake up I go running to keep up my speed. When I eat breakfast I do it to keep up my strength and my weight. I rest in the day so I can train in the evening. When I am taking the bus to training, I think about all that I will do that session and how I am going to improve. I cannot lose my life.” I was speechless. Sometimes the best way to help someone is to get out of the way. It is this pervasive desire that makes a poor man from a poor town in a poor country a world champion. Rise Again As I stood at the start of the third run of the four-man competition in La Plagne, France, during the 1992 Albertville Games, my mind was wrenched back to events four years earlier. To this day, I can still smell my fiberglass helmet burning against the ice as I slid through corners nine, ten, eleven and on at the Calgary track after that fateful crash at the 1988 Games. I can smell it now and I smelled it as I stood at the starting line in La Plagne. What am I doing here? I thought to myself. What made us embarrass ourselves in front of the whole world, get up, struggle, and stumble into another Olympic Games with far less fanfare? Desire. After great expectations, after four years of struggling and fantasies about being a world-class team, we made it to 185
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Albertville. We made it through the third run without incident, and the same for the fourth run. The team’s twentyfourth place finish was respectable, but more importantly we did not crash—or so many said. Still, as I rode up the hill in one of the trucks used to transport sleds from the bottom of the track to the top, sitting beside my brother, we reflected on the results of the race. We had come there not to not crash—though many applauded this achievement with relief—but to compete well. On our transatlantic flight to France, we sang and took comfort in the words from Bob Marley’s “Rastaman Live Up”: “Samson slew the Philistines with a donkey jawbone.” These words would come true but not yet. At that time as we took our reflective drive back up the hill, Tal said after a moment of silence, “Maybe black people can’t do this sport.” It was one of the few moments in his life I would see him slip, however briefly, into despair. It was desire that made us overcome the catastrophic disappointment of Calgary and desire that dragged us out of the despair of Albertville’s mediocrity. It is said that to succeed, one must simply rise one more time than one has fallen, or as Sir Winston Churchill is reputed to have said, “Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” There is a strange comfort in falling and continuing to lie down; it gives time to reflect on the fall, to assess damage, and to plan the best way to get up. The pause, however, if extended, will give rise to other disempowering thoughts like, It is easier to just lie here than to get up and move around and risk falling again. On the first fall, we
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Desire may jump up as a reflex but after repeated failure, only desire—and strong desire at that—can keep us focused on our dreams and goals, and keep us rising up where we have fallen, speeding up where we have slowed, and reaching for those things just beyond our fingertips. Energy of the Spirit The team entered the Lillehammer Olympics uncertain of its potential, separated by time from the great things it was about to achieve. Everyone was weary and frustrated, not from the rigors of training and competition but more so from the sheer energy, focus, and self-restraint which each person needed to muster to relate to Coach Sam Bock. Still we had made it to the Olympics with some strong performances, and spirits were generally high. Our biggest concern was whether or not Wayne Thomas, the best performing pusher at the time and a major stabilizer on the team, would be able to compete. Wayne had injured his hamstring during the intense training leading up to the Games and felt he needed rest and physiotherapy. Sam, on the other hand, felt that one needed to train through injury in order to recover properly, and he would always bring up this story about a Canadian rower who had severed a calf muscle on a propeller in a boating accident, yet went on to heal and win an Olympic medal in a few months simply by enduring the pain of the injury and training through it. I was skeptical and Wayne did not buy off on the theory. Regardless of what was the best way to treat the injury, Wayne had a dream—a desire to compete in the two-man 187
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event for Jamaica at Lillehammer. In the icy winter mornings of Lillehammer, when the air was thick with frost, Wayne would rise before all of us and go jogging, then get physiotherapy treatment several times for the day. Wayne did compete in the two-man and four-man events, but it was not until several months later as we sat on my veranda in Kingston that Wayne revealed to me the injury never really healed. He wanted to compete so badly it overshadowed his pain, and once the sled was at the starting line, his desire was all that mattered. I am still exploring the concept of negative induction in pain control or the means by which one shifts one’s focus away from pain and is therefore able to perform. Nothing focuses the mind on the task at hand more than desire. It blocks out not only pain but also all the plethora of little things which pops into one’s mind as soon as one settles down to perform, and it focuses the individual on the task at hand. Desire with Direction There is a saying that has come into vogue: People or organizations should learn to work smarter, not harder. I understand the underlying sentiment, although I would take no opportunity to spread any philosophy or creed that seeks to understate or modify the role of hard work in success. Still, the point that we need to work smart is a crucial and valid one. When one’s spirit or essence is pervaded by desire, then everything that is done is done in relation to the thing that is desired. Those things that do not move us to-
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Desire ward our desires are ignored and those that move us to those desires, at least in our view, are emphasized. The difficulty with this pervasion of desire is that it creates a whirlwind of energy and activity that can be destructive if it is not focused. When Gerd Leopold took over as coach of the team while we prepared for the 1998 Games in Nagano, all the athletes were programmed to the open-ended approach to training that Sam Bock practiced. You would never know how much of what activities we would be doing. Take sprints, for example. We would simply do 60-meter sprints until Sam was satisfied with the level of technical or timed performance. This could be anywhere from three to ten, more likely closer to the latter. Gerd, on the other hand, brought German precision to the program. Before we even warmed up he would say, for example: “Today we are doing three 30meter sprints at 100-percent effort.” I had been stuck at 3.71 seconds for my 30-meter time with a 1-meter flying start and wanted desperately to get into the 3.60s, if not the 3.50s, as I had in college. During the first workout with Gerd, he gave the instructions three times: 30-meters, maximum effort. I went 3.75, 3.72, and 3.70. I knew I could have gone under 3.70 on the next run. The desire was there, plus it would be good to take the opportunity to impress the new coach with my enthusiasm and work ethic. “Gerd,” I said, “I’d like to go one more time.” His response was one we would hear many times before the year was done until it became legendary in Jamaica bobsleigh circles—“Genug (enough).” With that, the training session 189
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was done. At the next sprint workout I ran 3.68, 3.67, and 3.66. I thought I could have gone 3.65 but I did not ask. Gerd understood from research and experience what was so succinctly stated by the former Canadian sprint coach Charlie Francis: “Application and recovery are equal.” Desire can lead to enthusiasm, enthusiasm can lead to obsession, and obsession unguided often leads to a dissipation of energy, lack of achievement, and frustration. Desire needs to be harnessed in a windmill or sails to be turned to productive work. In this regard, knowledge, experience, and self-control are crucial to using the power of desire as a transformational, empowering source of energy. Desire needs to be applied in a similar fashion to aspirin. If you take two tablets and you feel better, it does not follow if you take four tablets you’ll feel twice as good. This is true also of work, as we will see later. Equally important is the idea we cannot effectively desire too many things at the same time. In preparing for the 1994 Games in Lillehammer, I nursed a burning desire to not only be Jamaica’s top brakeman but to also compete at a high level in the 100-meter event in track and field. While they are supportive in some respects, my desire to achieve these two goals doomed me to achieving neither. To be Jamaica’s leading brakeman I would need, I thought, to get my weight up to 215 pounds, squat over 500 pounds and run the 30-meter in 3.5-plus seconds. To compete in the 100-meter at an international level, I would need to weigh 190 pounds at most and mix not only short sprints but also a lot of longer sprints into my training program. I could not do both. By the time 1994 rolled around, I was
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Desire too light to take the number one pusher position while lacking enough speed endurance to complete a 100-meter race effectively. The focusing of desire on a single goal is as critical to achievement as the need for desire itself. Comfortably Less “Maybe black people can’t do this sport” is the clearest indication I have seen in my years with Jamaica bobsleigh of the impact of unfulfilled desire. It is not a statement of fact but a statement of frustration and despair. Indeed, sustained desire without matching success can lead to deep depression. Recognizing several things is important to preempt this condition. Foremost, the fact that you desire something neither makes it so nor makes it a God-given right it will become so. Your desire simply puts you in the frame of mind to take on the struggle to achieve the thing desired. It is, if you will, a precursor to an activity, not the activity itself. Desire will give you the hope, help you to do the work, help you overcome failure, help you to learn. All these things so crucial to moving toward success are not success itself. As is the case with faith, desire without work is nothing. How many people do you know desire, even have a strong desire, to start his or her own business? Probably quite a few. The hard facts about desire are these. First, if you desire something and do not take concrete steps toward achieving it, you are guaranteed to fail. Second, if you desire something and pour your heart, energy, soul, and might into achieving it, you still have a fair chance of failing, if the thing desired is challenging enough. 191
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The choice you make depends on whether or not you choose to sit in life’s stands or play your heart out on life’s field. Life is full of tales of people whose desires were not acted upon or who perhaps quit too early in frustration and who, in the twilight of their years or careers, try desperately to make an impact or a comeback. How often have we seen, particularly in relationships as well as in so many things we wish to be successful at in life, that we desire so much deep in our hearts yet we push our desires away, undermine them, and doom them. They fail simply because we are afraid to live out our desires, to pursue them, to take the chance that, yes, they may fail but, oh yes, they may succeed. While some people face the problem of mustering up desires, having some goal worthy of their energy and effort, I believe that most of us spend our time almost unconsciously subduing our desires so that they do not blossom and grow. Why? Because we are afraid that if they do, then we will stand face-to-face with them and then would have to deal frontally with our personal issues of self-actualization that, if Maslow is to be believed, is the highest human need. Fear squashes our desires and makes us feel comfortable being less than we can be. There is a challenge out there for all of us to quit running away from what we want to be or desire for ourselves, and turn toward it and embrace it. Once we get to the point of realizing that it is okay to fail and that it is imperative to try, then we will start recognizing our desires. If you had a clean sheet of paper and you could design your life and your achievements in any way you want, then what would
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Desire your life look like? Perhaps in some cases your life would look the same as it is now, perhaps in others very different. What is important, though, is we are where we want to be or are in the process of getting to where we want to be, and that we are, as it were, happening to life and not letting life happen to us.
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Chapter 10 Belief Face-to-Face It was Wednesday, February 24, 1988, as I stood at the back of the four-man sled in the late afternoon at the start of our training run for the Calgary Olympics. The weather was mild compared to the Washington State winter I had just left five days earlier, Calgary being blessed by the spring-like chinook winds that howled and swirled inside my helmet—inside my head. I looked down the long icy chute I was supposedly about to propel myself. It was my first time running and loading into a sled on ice, and I had two days to get it right. Within that time, the plan of the coach and managers was for me to start on the four-man team in the Olympic competition. My hands and legs were shaking, though I doubted that it was from the cold. I must admit that I wanted to turn back, to go home. To tell everyone that maybe this is not such a good idea, and I’ll start practicing
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in earnest next season when I have enough time to learn how to push and load into the sled, and endure the wrenching effects of the centrifugal forces which awaited me down the track. But I couldn’t. There was only one way out and that was down the track. I looked to my left, then right, and saw Michael White and Devon Harris, respectively, and took some comfort in their experience, however limited. Michael had already successfully completed the two-man competition, and the four-man must have been a step down for him in terms of pressure. Devon never seemed one to have confidence issues and this day appeared no different. I looked forward to the left and saw my brother, calm and focused as ever, and felt a calm come over me. I had always trusted him intrinsically off the track, and it was instinctive to trust him on the track, which I did for the next ten years though my trust was often tested. Of all of us, I felt most perplexed by his calmness and confidence. All I had to do was to push behind the sled, step in with the aid of a bung, and keep low for the rest of the ride. He, on the other hand, had to not only push a far less secure push bar, but also load into the sled with a single bound and without the help of a bung, and then steer the monstrous contraption to the bottom of the track through a slither of turns. I found new respect for him on that day. Still, as part of a team, surrounded by scores of athletes and thousands of spectators, I was alone and afraid. Could I do this? My body did not have the luxury of repeated practice; I had to move everything into my head. No
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Belief one could believe and perform for me. I had to believe and perform for myself. A few years later I wrote the following about that experience: I much preferred it over there than standing, shaking, trembling in this perilous place. Yes, it was ahh, safer over there, so secure, so predictable, so comfortable. It was warmer over there too. What, then, brought me here? It is a curious thing that when here, I yearn for there and when there, I reminisce for here. Yet I know that I can’t be over there but here I can be. Thrown to with discontent and fro with fear. Perhaps beyond fear lies contentment. But it is so steep, so unknown, so dangerous, what if, what if… I am frozen. Yes, it is cold but I am frozen beyond that. I am fearful. Yes, it is dangerous but I am fearful beyond that. This is it, though. This is the moment. Will I be? Yes. I hold my head up and stare straight on as if not to pass through it but more than that, to defeat it, to conquer it, to scrape from it my self-fulfillment. I stare it down as if it were not a dead cold thing. I am warmer now. I am hot in the freezing cold, I am bold. That’s back. Set.
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There is no turning back now. All that I have I give, all that I fear is embattled. This is not so bad. Why was I so afraid? Why did I cling so long to that safe place? The course reminds me. A violent awakening and attempt at taming. I am tossed and thrown, hold on; the air compressed from my spirit, hold on; thoughts knocked from my head, hold on; my courage besieged, still I hold on. What if?…What if?…Still I hold on. You can stop this, you know, and step out. Tamed like a raging fire put out by spittle. Scurry to that place over there. But the fight is on. A strange thing it is, that right by our deepest fear lies our deepest courage. Let us go to that place, then. Fight back, survive—no, prevail, conquer. It is done. I can do it. I have done it. I am stronger, bolder, more confident. I throw my hands in the air with the knowledge that there is nothing, Nothing I can’t take on now. Hey, let’s do it again. Do You Believe? This idea is a simple one in concept. Someone may ask, “Do you think you can do this or do that?” and you may say almost by reflex, “Sure.” But when you stand where I
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Belief stood, facing international embarrassment at the low end and the risk of loss of life at the high end, then the question of whether or not you can do this or do that requires far deeper contemplation. To succeed, not so much at the ordinary but at the extraordinary, you must believe in yourself and in your abilities. Here I do not refer to pompous arrogance that regards the magnitude of the challenge at hand and takes on all comers in a reckless and whimsical manner. Rather, one needs a sober recognition of the challenge which lies ahead, an assessment of what is needed to meet this challenge while refusing to cede power to the challenge or the circumstance, focusing instead on creating a mental state, a belief and conviction that you can do what lies ahead. Without belief, we are likely to stay well within our comfort zones of performance and therefore never really test our abilities—and therefore never give ourselves the opportunity to grow. During my early college days at Bronx Community College in New York, I had the good fortune of meeting and training with Brady Crane, an outstanding sprinter who won the 200-meter event at the US National Track and Field Championships in 1984. Brady was coached by a Russian expatriate named Remi Korchemny. I benefited tremendously from these two gentlemen. One of the principles I learned from Remi that I have applied through my life is recognizing the human body will always try to adapt to its circumstances to cope. It is a sort of mini-evolution theory. So, if we want the body to be able to run faster, then we must gradually increase the speed at which we run, eventu199
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ally getting to the point where we may use over-speed devices such as pulleys or downhill running to get the body to perform at a level just out of its immediate reach. The same principle may be applied to developing strength. Unless the body is made to move more weight than it is able, with assistance, then it will not adapt and become stronger. To improve, then, requires moving out of our comfort zone and trying new things. To try new things, we must believe we can do it. Like millions of sports fans around the world, I remain intrigued by watching Michael Jordan play basketball even during his abbreviated second comeback. One of the things that fascinates me is his always wanting to shoot the ball. That he has been out of the game for years, and that he has missed the previous eight shots in the game does not diminish his desire to take the next shot, nor is it reflected in the purposefulness of the shot attempt itself. Clearly, he always believes he can make the next shot and steps forward with certainty and confidence. In reflecting this attitude, Charles Barkley, the NBA great who passed up on the opportunity to make a comeback with Jordan, said, in effect, on TNT’s Inside the NBA, that if during the first part of a game he finds himself making one basket for eleven attempts, he’s not going to quit trying even if he finishes the night four and twenty-six. Like Jordan, Barkley was prepared to continue shot attempts because he believes that he can always make the next one basket and score.
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Belief In the Now One of the challenges I had to face as I made my first practice run pushing and loading into the sled onCalgary’s ice was that my past experience was not pleasant and did not inspire confidence or belief. One reason I was brought in to join the team was because Caswell Allen, team member and accomplished junior level sprinter living in Canada, hurt himself on the push track at Calgary. He had fallen off the sled, not unusual during the learning phase of loading. He did this, though, on a practice track, on an artificial running surface, with only his teammates around. I certainly did not want to do it on ice in front of a fair crowd with that merciless recorder of mishaps, the television camera, focused keenly on my every move, or so it felt. I, too, had many difficulties in learning to load into the sled. First of all, I needed to run downhill at full speed, which terrified me. During the run, I kept glancing to the side of my helmet to see what was taking Devon so long to get into the sled and then wondering if Michael intended to run all the way into the first curve. Didn’t they understand that I just wanted to get into the sled and sit down? I learned to overcome this by keeping my head down, looking at my feet. My long strides and fast leg turnover allowed me to run for about a meter or two longer than Michael who loaded right before me. I was to learn years later this was not the best way to position the body to apply maximum force to the sled but it would have to do for the time being. Secondly, I had difficulty with the timing and technique of dropping into, or in bobsleigh parlance, “hitting” the sled 201
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at the start. The best teams in the world apply force to the sled at once in unison. There were many attempts in practice when I felt that the sled was “hit” four different times, separately by each team member. Finally, I had difficulty sitting in the sled with three other guys. Somehow I would end up with my spikes in Michael’s calf muscles, and with him partially sitting on my knee. This was painful on the push track but would be excruciatingly so on bob track as the G forces quadrupled one’s weight. I am sure Michael bears scars on his calf muscles to this day. Now that I know it takes a four-man crew an entire summer of close to two hundred practice pushes to get loading into the sled right, I marvel at my disappointment over not being able to get it right after half a dozen or so dry runs. Still my problem was immediate and pressing. What happened on the push track was not good, but standing at the starting line I had to get it right, and the first thing seeping into my consciousness at the time and taking deep root was that the past does not equal the future. When I stepped to the starting line for the third run of the four-man competition at La Plagne, France, during the Albertville Games, my consciousness was attacked by memories of that same run—the third—in Calgary four years earlier. Those memories, that past experience, caused me to doubt whether or not we could successfully complete the run at hand, but I knew that the past did not predetermine the future and so I was able to believe and move on. When you truly and deeply believe in yourself, it allows you to not only try new things, to push the envelope so to
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Belief speak—that crucial part of growth and development—but it also allows you to fail and to try again and again and again because you know in your heart you can do it. Failure is like rust. If we neglect to clean it out, then it will seize up our performance machinery. Because I believe I am able, the fact I failed last week or this morning or a second ago does not make me believe any less that I am able to perform now. This is the conviction of a champion. Powerful beyond Measure My family moved from Galina, St. Mary, where my father was the minister of Emmanuel Baptist Church in the nearby town of Port Maria, to Calabar High School on Red Hills Road in Kingston, where he took the post of school chaplain. We lived on the school compound, which provided very little opportunity for social interaction with other children. Most of the time it was just Tal and I. My sister Terry occasionally came into play but mostly at the short end of some prank or the other. Often on Saturday mornings, Tal and I would play one-on-one soccer in an open area in front of our home. More times than not I would win, but what strikes me about that interaction was that I would always try to explain away why I won—the ball bounced in my favor, I was lucky, your shoe came off. I never thought I won because I was good. It was not that I did not want to offend my older brother; it was that I refused to accept my talents, build on them, and believe in myself. It is evident, fairly easily demonstrated, and generally accepted that I have more athletic ability than my brother. 203
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Still he rose to the top of a sport of tremendous difficulty. Tal believed more in his little ability than I believed in my great ability and that belief has made all the difference. I have enjoyed outstanding participation in high school sport both in track and field and in soccer, but through all of this, as my raw athleticism took me to new heights, it was Tal’s belief in me and determination for me that kept me from quitting out of frustration on a number of occasions. I cannot count the number of hours he spent convincing me I was better than the person I was going to race against the next day. While I was racked by nerves and just wanted to get it over with, he’d tell me, “Chris, you can win, you can win.” I often won. When he left to join the Jamaica Defense Force and I still had two years left in high school, I had my greatest achievements athletically and academically at that level. It was not because I had the belief on my own but rather his words and his attitude were so ingrained in that I fed off of them even when he was not around. By the time I attended college in the USA, my confidence in myself academically and athletically was untouchable and came from inside me. I won conference sprint titles indoor and outdoor, became part of an outstanding University of Idaho 4x100meter relay team with Sam Koduah, Dave Smith, and Everton Wanliss, reaching the final of that event in the 1985 NCAA Division I Track and Field Championships in Austin, Texas. I graduated summa cum laude from Bronx Community College and cum laude from the University of Idaho. I, by myself, believed I was good.
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Belief I watched the opening ceremonies of the fifteenth Olympic Winter Games from the comfort of my apartment in Pullman, Washington. I felt proud to see Jamaica and particularly my brother on TV but still had no appreciation of the sport or the magnitude of the event. I was amazed there were winter sports besides skiing and ice skating. The Wednesday after the opening ceremony when my brother called and asked me to come up to the Games, I was filled with misgivings. The following Friday I was scheduled to compete in a major indoor meet. I had looked forward to the race at that meet and was determined to win. Furthermore, it was a crucial step in my preparation for attempting to be selected on the Jamaican team to the 1988 Seoul Olympics later that year in the summer. This was my life’s dream. I decided to go to Calgary, not because I wanted to, but because he asked. He was in a bind, and he needed my speed, though I did not know why at the time. Tensions That Bind I turned up at four-man training on the push track the day after the two-man event to watch and learn. Having watched the two-man event, I had a much better understanding of the sport and estimated that, with hard work and practice, within twelve to eighteen months I should be able to start competing. I shared this sentiment with Tal, who was intense and on a short fuse. One of his pushers had hurt himself, and he had no sled with four days to go to the race. “You’re racing this weekend,” was all he said and walked off. I sat for a while and reflected, offended by his 205
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tone, and then I followed after him. I caught up with him and reminded him of a few things: first, I was an aspiring world-class sprinter who didn’t have the time for this sideshow; second, I was a grown man, not one of his little private soldiers he was accustomed to ordering around; and third, what he was asking could not be done. He looked at me and his face turned stony. He ignored my first two points. “Chris,” he said with a raised voice, “I sent for you because I need a fast start if I am to have any hope of competing, and you’re the best man for that. I believe you can do it—that’s why we got you up here, that’s why you are in the Olympic Village as an accredited athlete, and that’s why you’re at training. I have my own problems, and I need you to step up and believe in yourself and perform. I don’t have the time to baby-sit and spoon-feed you, and you don’t have the time to wonder if you can do it. Just get it done.” He walked off, stopped, turned, and looked at me, as I stood unaccustomed to tension in our relationship. His voice softened. “Are you in?” he asked. “I’m in,” I replied, surprisingly without hesitation. At that moment I was overcome by the desire to take on this challenge. The next five days became the most tense in our relationship. For every hour of practice on the track, I would practice for two in my head in the dark in my room. My body and mind surprised me by adjusting so well and so quickly to the new demands put on it. With each lesson and each small success, Tal remained demanding, pushing,
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Belief shouting as if he knew something deeper resided inside me I had not yet reached for. By the second day of training, we stopped speaking. It was not until five days later as I dragged my body from the crashed sled that we spoke. Now this is the truth of the matter: I, as an ordinary man, who had not seen a sled before in his life, after three days of training pushed a sled in an Olympic competition to the seventh fastest start time in the race. I was able to do this, not so much because I was good, but because others believed in me and drove me to believe more deeply in myself. Stretching and Strengthening the Mind I am not one of those who will, without thought or reason, say, “All things are possible,” because I am sure that, absent divine intervention, all things are not possible. There are some things that, as human beings, we can do, and some things we can’t. But because we can never really know where that line is, where the possible ends and the impossible begins, we must be open to all challenges and take them on with the attitude that this too is possible. What we know and believe to be possible is often defined by our experience in the physical world—the past personal trials and failures in particular but also our observation of others. The sub-four-minute mile was “impossible” until it was done, as were the Axel jumps in figure skating. Innovators redefine for us the realm of possibilities and lift our heads to new horizons from where we can never again lower our gaze. To do this effectively, to change the world not in incremental but in revolutionary 207
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ways, requires belief in ourselves and in things larger than ourselves. It is not an easy thing when your belief is tested in the heat of battle, when the stakes are high. Or when whether or not you believe in yourself really matters, or when there are desired rewards and dreaded consequences. In the moment of testing, you will be haunted and attacked by images gone past and images imagined: images of past trials and failures you can still feel and taste and images of the worst that might happen. These experiences will come back again and again and can literally disperse your focus, weaken your muscle and, more seriously, weaken your will. To overcome and triumph, you must resist these thoughts, not by ignoring them because then they simply retreat to the shadows of your psyche only to jump out and snap at your heels when you are most vulnerable. To disempower these thoughts and these experiences, you must confront them, relive them, and in this process, destroy them forever. These past experiences live and grow in the mind and must be ferreted out and destroyed there. In my own experience, this destruction can take the form of visualizing this negative experience and then, at the moment of failure or defeat, exploding or shattering the vision so that it is rejected by the mind. This exercise, if repeated often enough and with enough realism, will go a long way in purging the mind of these agents of underachievement. In the same way negative images must be conditioned out of the mind, so too must positive images of success be deeply imprinted in the mind. Whether standing at the start
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Belief of a bobsleigh run, or on the runway for a long jump, or in front of a board of directors about to make a presentation, or confronting a coworker or family member on a difficult issue, visualizing the activity or event in great detail—its sights, sounds, scents, tastes, what movements the body will make, what you will say, and how you will feel—is a powerful tool in getting the mind to condition the body for performance. Visualizing a positive experience and outcome will go a long way in making it so. Critical to belief and ultimately to success is the conditioning of the mind to expect success and to reject automatically anything that disempowers the spirit. But almost as important is our control of the physical world around us. While Tal could believe in me he could not believe for me, but his confidence helped tremendously in my own. This influence works both ways. Surrounding yourself with persons who don’t believe in you (naysayers who have a negative attitude toward challenge) can be just as destructive as the negative attitudes in your mind. In fact, the physical ones may plant and water the mental ones. You have probably heard it before and it is old sound advice: Surround yourself with positive people—not yes-men, but people with a positive attitude and an appetite for taking on the extraordinary. Get into a group that provides mutual symbiotic support so that when you leave it, you feel energized and empowered. In Leaves No Step Had Trodden Black (Robert Frost, A Road Not Taken)
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In 1982, after I had won the 100-meter event at the National High School Track and Field Championships, I celebrated by having a few Red Stripe beers, which was not unusual at the time, and by eating “jerk chicken” purchased along the side of the road from a lone enterprising fellow who had cut an oil barrel horizontally in half to form a barbeque grill of sorts. The chicken was excellent and the method of preparation innovative. Today as I drive along Red Hills Road on a Saturday night, I pass in rapid succession a series of these jerk chicken pits, all selling the same thing, with nothing to differentiate them. Success breeds success, but imitation stifles innovation. The truth is that as humans we tend to do what is doable, or what has been done. To do otherwise requires, among other things, faith, and as the Nobel Laureate for Literature Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote in his book Of Love and Other Demons: “Disbelief is more resistant than faith because it is sustained by the senses.” There was nothing in George Fitch’s sensory environment that would lead him to take an incremental step to start the Jamaica Bobsleigh Team. If he had said he wanted to develop a Jamaican to be a world champion pole-vaulter, or if he had set out to create a world champion javelin thrower from Jamaica, then he would have been taking measured steps in a set direction. He would have been acting based on stimuli of the apparent. However, to live in Jamaica, to experience the triple Ss of this paradise island—sun, sand, and sea—to be immersed in a sporting history defined by track and field and yet to reach so far into one’s imagination as to construe the very idea—the
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Belief very thought—of a bobsleigh team from Jamaica requires an open-mindedness, a sense of infinite possibility so often referred to by business school graduates of the 1990s as “thinking out of the box.” It is my observation that despite corporate executives charging their troops to go forth and think out of the box, it is not an easy thing. There is no switch that has “in -box thinking” above and “out-of-box thinking” below. Rather, it is a state of mind coming from a sort of mental indiscipline, which permits the individual to skip the next logical step and go for the outrageous leap of faith. The first challenges the mind; the second challenges the spirit. There are those who would view the difference as right-brain versus left-brain activity, but whatever it is, it is clear not all persons can “think out of the box.” This is all right because in a real sense breathing life into an unlikely thought is a creative process and while some people are more creative than others, most are not creative at all. The right-brain left-brain argument explains this biologically, but the causes are also to be found in our educational system that emphasizes form and structure, as well as the right and wrong way of doing things. As our educational processes move away from this model, the world can expect an explosion in creativity of all sorts driven by technological advances which ignore age, time, and space. Belief is what moves us from idea to action. If we have a thought to do something and do not believe that it is possible, then that thing will remain a thought. If we believe an idea to do something is possible, then it has a chance to be acted upon and perhaps ultimately to become reality. The bigger the idea, the more belief is required, because in addition to the greater challenges in realizing the idea itself, you 211
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will be faced with those who through the sheer negativity of their attitude add weight to the challenge at hand. My own experience is that while the degree of difficulty with challenges may increase linearly, an individual’s positive or negative attitude toward that challenge increases exponentially. Get on and stay on the side of those who are incredibly energized by challenge, by the thought of taking on the impossible, and maybe, even if only once, you’ll do something extraordinary in your life and with the opportunities given you.
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Chapter 11 Work The Great Equalizer I learned an important lesson while in the ninth grade at Calabar High School in Jamaica. The school year in Jamaica is divided into the Christmas term, the Easter term, and the summer term. During the Christmas term of that year, I played Under-15 soccer for the school. I loved soccer and the activity consumed my every thought and emotion. It consumed me and my schoolwork suffered. The Easter term proved even worse because it was the track term and not only did I love track and field, I was really good at it. Again I became consumed by a sport and again my schoolwork suffered. My parents were, of course, by this time completely flabbergasted since my father was a respected member of the school community, and my mother taught at the nearby Queen’s High School for Girls. At this stage in life, I had the freedom and luxury of no
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sense of consequence, and therefore went about my daily life enjoying myself. I began the summer term in serious academic difficulty but had the good fortune of not having any major sporting activity as a distraction. As a result, I studied more, not because I was particularly studious, but because it was the best among a set of poor and boring alternatives. When the results came out that term, my grades were substantially improved, and my academic future seemed secure for the time being though it was to be tested repeatedly the next two years. This confirmed what I knew intrinsically from sport, which is that the harder I work, the better I do. The relationship emerged as beautiful to me in its simplicity and effectiveness. I had no difficulty with my capacity to work, to try something again and again. It remains one of life’s real blessings. So I found myself incredibly empowered. If I wanted to do well in an exam—no problem—I would just study more. If I wanted to do better on the track—no problem—I would just train more. If I wanted to do better at soccer—no problem—I would just practice more. While I have been blessed with many talents in sports and academics, the item that moves me the extra step, to do just that much better than the next guy, is my ability to outwork him. All of a sudden now, I did not have to be the brightest, the most talented, or the most gifted to win; I just had to work the hardest. The revelation and results have been uplifting. Tal must be the least promising athlete I have ever met, yet he rose to be one of the leading drivers in the world of
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Work bobsleigh in a relatively short time. This did not surprise me or anyone else who knows Tal. After all, this was the same person who forged a successful soccer career at the high school level through sheer will alone. He was neither skillful nor elegant, but his dogged determination became legendary and earned him the nickname in certain soccer circles of “El Toro.” He used these characteristics as a standout right fullback for Cornwall College where incidentally, while a defender, he was one of the leading scorers for the school during that year. Forwards would often comment they found it easy to dribble past Tal, but he would come back, again and again, until they were forced into a mistake. By the time he went into the army, Tal had built his much-desired sport career on outworking his opponents. Driving a bobsleigh is an eye-hand coordination skill, and like most eye-hand coordination efforts, such as playing the piano or playing the saxophone, time-on-task is critical to success. One may not become a maestro, but the more one practices the better one becomes. Tal used this simple natural law to his utmost advantage. He would spend half an hour more than the next athlete stretching during our warm-ups. He’d mentally rehearse each run in between performing it while the rest of us would be chatting. He’d watch videotapes after training while the rest of us were exchanging stories. At night, while other drivers were relaxing, he would be driving down the track mentally just one more time. He even went so far as to change the sensitivity of the touch pad on his laptop that controls the cursor so he could enhance the finesse of his touch. 215
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Not only did he have to work harder, he had to work harder in harder ways. The normal world-class bobsleigh driver during the course of a season may amass, say, 120 to 160 runs down a variety of tracks around the world. Again, these runs are important in developing the eye-hand skill so crucial to bobsleigh driving. Simply put, the more runs you have, the better chance you have to become a better driver. In a good season, Tal would only be able to have forty or so runs, approximately a third the number of the drivers he was competing against. This unfortunate situation was a result of our chronic funding problems, but he, through work, found a way to make a hopeless situation not so bad. Tal perfected the art of visualizing his athletic performances and even though he could not outwork his opponents on the track, he certainly did so mentally through driving various tracks again and again hundreds of times in his mind. The results have been impressive. At the Lillehammer Olympics, just before the third run of the four-man competition, Tal was timed as he mentally drove the track. A half hour later, he received his actual time from the run. His mental drive was a mere one-hundredth of a second slower. Take hope, therefore, for while talent is the natural divider, work is the great equalizer. Work Smart There can be no question that generally the harder one works, the better one does, and this gives all of us hope. Nevertheless, as already alluded to in the discourse on de-
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Work sire, too much work can actually yield less return. This is again, in my view, a natural law in life. Economists brand it the law of diminishing returns. Mathematicians represent it through calculus as a curve increasing at a decreasing rate. Charlie Francis put it this way, stating, “Application and Recovery are equal.” But my mother put it best when, swamped under paperwork for a week or more, I asked her if she was making any progress. “The harder I work,” she replied, “the behinder I get.” I tend to set new goals for myself and get all excited about them and become immersed in their achievement. The time when I began serious weight training as a sophomore at the University of Idaho was no different. This weight training thing to me was fantastic. I went to that university at a modest 175 pounds. Many of the friends I made, including Mark Schelereth who went on to have an outstanding professional career with the Denver Broncos, were buffed and, well, I wanted to be buffed, too. The initial results were phenomenal in my mind. By the end of my first semester of weight training I bulked up to 185 pounds. I was hyped. I now had a full summer ahead of me, which meant, apart from my summer job of cleaning rooms and toilets at the university’s dorms, I had time on my hands. I figured logically that if I trained really hard, I could put on another ten pounds and get up to the size of my good friend Freeman Watkins who was a standout on the basketball team. My plan was simple. Work hard. This I did, lifting every day except Sunday including twice on Saturday. After three weeks I had lost five pounds and was mentally and physically exhausted. I was getting “behinder.” 217
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At this time that I was fortunate enough to meet and be accepted as a training partner by Captain Don Lanpher of the Moscow Police Department, a power lifter who applied knowledge to work and gained superior results. Don trained hard not only by using his muscles but also by using his mind, and he rested well. I changed from training each muscle group three times per week to once per week but with much heavier weights and with longer rest periods. I did not understand at first but within six weeks, I had made tremendous gains in size and strength simply by training smarter. Stillness of Mind High performance comes from a stillness of mind. It is in quiet and peace that we find our greatest strength. I learned this from years of standing at the 55-meter and 100meter starting line for sprints, from standing at the starting line of numerous bobsleigh runs, from preparing for MBA examinations, and from preparing and presenting strategic plans to boards of directors. In the fall of 1988, when I was training for the Seoul Olympics and still unaware of the fate that awaited me in the world of bobsleigh, I decided to focus on developing my squatting strength as a crucial part of my preparation. Don Lanpher and I had stopped training together for a while, but he was happy to work with me once again when I asked. I explained to him what my goals were. Don is a man of few words and he simply said, “If you want to get
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Work strong, we know how to do that.” So I started training with him. His leg training day fell on a Tuesday, which was fine by me since Monday was my hard-sprint day, so I’d have maximum rest between my heavy squatting day and my heavy sprinting day. This was important since both exercises rely heavily on white muscle fiber, and sprinting at full speed with tired muscles not only compromises the quality of the sprint but also exposes the athlete to an unnecessary risk of injury. Over the months of training with Don, I came to understand the importance of stillness of mind in high performance. Weightlifters are notorious for shouting and screaming as they strain to complete a rep—veins swollen and eyes popping. So when Don would do this it did not seem unusual to me, and in fact, I had developed a fair scream and shout myself. What piqued my interest with Don, though, was not his noise but his silence. Before a particularly heavy set, he would grab the bar firmly, breathe in rapidly, then exhale slowly. At the end of this exhalation, he would slip under the bar, balance and steady it on his back, and then lift it off. After the noise of his concentric action from moving the weight up, he would hold for a moment at the top of the squat position and regain quiet to focus. Well aware of the futility of expecting Don to explain anything in more than a few muffled words, I did not explore his technique too much with him, but I did study his actions and begin to learn. What I learned was amazing. By simply quieting myself before the squat, finding the still quiet place of performance inside me, where I did the squat in my mind, rehearsed the 219
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motion, felt, and embraced the pain and then proceeded to execute, I got dramatic results. Each pause in the squat was not an opportunity to rest the muscle but rather to focus the mind. Within a week of practicing this technique, I increased my squat from 325 pounds to 415 pounds, all when I weighed 185 pounds. It is perhaps a Jamaican characteristic to interact extensively during training. This became particularly clear to me in January 1985 when I started training with the University of Idaho track team during my first semester of a track scholarship. While our US teammates were focused on every word of Coach Michael Keller and his every action, Dave Smith and Everton Wanliss—my teammates from Jamaica—and myself would scarcely complete a run when we would start chatting and laughing until the next run. Many onlookers found this perplexing since we would quickly proceed to perform at a very high level. It had nothing to do with raw athletic prowess but rather with the ability to move in a fraction of a second into a state of performance preparedness with conservation and timely application of focus. Mental energy, no matter how well trained, is limited. Like physical energy, it can be used up to the point of creating fatigue. When one is warming up, for example, one does not use all of one’s energy but enough to prepare the body or mind for maximum exertion. It is important to understand this quiet place in the mind does not require quiet surroundings. Every time you watch football on Sunday afternoon, this is borne out, as the best quarterbacks are able to execute
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Work with precision in the face of boisterous, even hostile, crowds. In December 1997, the four-man bobsleigh team traveled to La Plagne, France, in a quest for enough points to qualify for the 1998 Olympics. Because of budget constraints, this was effectively our last opportunity. Team captain Tal Stokes decided at the season’s beginning to attempt to qualify for the Olympics through the tough World Cup Circuit as opposed to the easier America Cup Circuit. While we would have been able to earn the points for qualification over a weekend on the America Cup Circuit, it would take a full high pressure season on the World Cup Circuit to eke out enough points for qualification. Tal decided that, if at that stage in his career and with one of the best crews in the world, he could not qualify on the World Cup Circuit, he did not belong in the Olympics. This attitude is but one of the characteristics of the man—the courage to live or die by his convictions. The pressure was intense. We had to qualify that day. The quality of the sled in bobsleigh is critical, accounting for a substantial percentage of the team’s performance. Our sled that day was rented from the hotel where we were staying. One member of the British bobsleigh team commented to me that the sled looked remarkably similar to the one in the hotel lobby, a static display to promote the race. The hotel had acquired it because some considered it noncompetitive. I responded to my British friend that it was, indeed, the same sled. We had recently parted company with the coach—Sam Bock—and were essentially there under our own supervision, guidance, and management. During training for the 221
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race I jarred my back and practically separated my ribs from my spine. The pain was excruciating. Walking hurt. Coughing was worse. I got some physiotherapy treatment, but my ability to still compete was due more, I believe, to taking twelve hundred milligrams of ibuprofen a day than the physiotherapy. The damage to my stomach caused me not to be able to eat solid food all Christmas. My back, of course, got worse before it got better. The morning of the race we headed toward our transport van across a field of snow—the four of us—helmets in hand and changing bags over our shoulders. Winston Watt, thanks to his 400-pound bench press, was obliged to carry the runners as well, slung over his left shoulder. As we headed toward the vehicle, we all knew what we were up against—last chance to qualify for the big show, no coach, a “museum” sled, and an injured teammate. In our bones we knew that in adversity we would rise. We walked and laughed but as we entered the van, a silence overcame all of us. Winston put in our tape for that season—ninety minutes of the Fugees’s We Trying to Stay Alive. The radio was blasting. Looka looka looka looka looka looka looka Looka here look at Shorty got back, should I ask her For a dance, hold on, there’s too many in the wolf pack And besides, Dirty Cash talkin’ to her Buyin’ her fake furs and takin’ her to the Fever Quiet as it’s kept, that ain’t even his Benz She spends his Franklins at the malls with her friends….
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Work But we were each in our own world getting ready to meet in the same place where a person finds his best and where individuals become a team—we were getting into the “zone.” Knowledge In October 1987, when the athletes on the first Jamaican Bobsleigh Team went to Lake Placid to become familiar with the sport and to do some running on ice, they were assigned a workout one day which consisted of doing five 60-meter sprints on a frozen lake. The athletes began sprinting off to the 60-meter mark, but Freddie Powell did not seem to be exerting himself and lagged behind. As the athletes slowed to a halt after reaching the mark, Freddie kept running and running and running until he disappeared under some pine trees in the distance. Everyone looked at each other quizzically. After another 60-meter sprint, Freddie returned from the forest breathing heavily. “Where were you?” the coach asked. “I just wanted to do all five together, Coach,” was his reply. Freddie figured that one 300-meter run was as good as five 60-meter runs. His math was right but his knowledge of training was completely missing. Work needs knowledge to yield results. Sam Bock, the national bobsleigh coach from 1994 to 1998, lives, eats, and breathes knowledge. He has a voracious appetite for reading and research. He is a thinker and an inventor of the classic mold, which means he is also thought of in many circles as being a little wacked. He developed, for example, the training technique of pushing the 223
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sled uphill to develop quadriceps strength. That it did, but it earned more than a few stares from our German compatriots who were more accustomed to pushing the sled downhill and who had not come across such an approach even within the former East German literature describing all manner of experimental training techniques. Right or wrong, for better or for worse, Sam knew a lot of stuff. He had done extensive research into the development of speed especially as it relates to the bobsleigh push. His expertise extended into sled design where he himself would make sleds and he claimed at one point to have the fastest two-man sled on the hill in Calgary. He also did extensive work in shoe design both for track and field and bobsleigh. His greatest compulsion, though, was in the field of nutrition where he would research and mix various concoctions to improve the health and performance of his athletes. Sam applied his vast knowledge to the bobsleigh program. Some of it worked and others didn’t, but he did everything based on research and observation. Sam joined the program with six weeks to go to the 1994 Olympic Winter Games in Lillehammer, Norway. During this period, I was to see firsthand the power of intense work guided by knowledge. The heart of our training took place in the remote former East German town of Oberhof, at a military base used to develop soldier athletes. The legendary Wolfgang Hoppe learned much of his skill there. The team was never afraid of hard work whether or not a coach was around. In fact, the danger was always that we would do too much and not
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Work that we would not do enough. Sam brought focus to our efforts and therefore improved results. The first modification was our diet. My first encounter with Sam as coach was standing on the platform of a train station in Munich where we were about to board a train on the way to Oberhof. I was hungry and, steeped in many American traditions, including a craving for fast food, I bought a hamburger and fries. They did not have Pepsi™, so I settled for some other cola. I was about to bite into my burger when Sam walked up to me, took it from my hand and examined it closely, using his bare hands to separate the meat from the bread, from the lettuce, from the tomato. He then went into some spiel about the effects of processed bread on the level of blood sugar and the effect on the colon of overcooked meat and on and on. The next thing I know he is tossing my burger onto the railway tracks and trying to reach for my cola. The cola eventually suffered the same fate as the burger. I quietly put away the fries, which were covered in ketchup and salt and would certainly have been the topic of another lecture. The message was clear: what we put into our mouths impacted our physical performance tremendously, and it would be monitored. During the Oberhof training session, we would be presented at breakfast our allotment of supplements, which came up to around a dozen tablets per day. After about two weeks into training when it was beginning to be difficult to keep track of time and space, Wayne and Winston developed the methodology of counting my tablets to determine how long we had been in training. Though politely accepting my allotment, I did not take any. I did
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not doubt their effectiveness, but I simply had a lifelong aversion to taking tablets. Make or Break It was in the training sessions themselves, though, that Sam drew on and channeled our work ethic. A normal day would begin around six with Sam waking us simply to warm up and have breakfast. This warm-up would include a ten- to fifteen-minute jog followed by extensive stretching and run-throughs followed by massage. At first Sam asked us to massage each other, which was not the thing to do within a group of Jamaican men who had spent their lives immersed in a homophobic culture. Nevertheless, after affirming our various desires for women, and presenting a catalogue of acts confirming that we were in fact “gallists” (or gigolos as Americans say)—much of which was false—we proceeded to massage each other. Sam was never happy with the quality of massages and massaged each of us himself on several occasions. One day he sent us to see the masseuse at the training base. The first day we walked in, we watched the masseuse effortlessly massage about half a dozen rather scrawny ski jumpers. Winston, of course, jumped onto the table first from among us for his massage. Unaccustomed to dealing with hard-as-nails thirty-inch quadriceps, the masseuse broke out into a sweat during the first five minutes and actually closed the office for the afternoon after completing Winston, claiming she was too tired to work anymore. We went back to massaging each other.
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Work Early afternoon was devoted to training, which would last anywhere from four to six hours, involving basic repetitive tasks—short sprints, explosive jumps, split jumps, and bobsleigh pushing on the iced push track. The training sessions would end with a warm-down as extensive as the warm-up, then the dreaded hot and cold where we would fill one tub with hot water and another with cold, near freezing water. We would spend fifteen or so minutes in each alternately for two or three times. At night we would watch videotapes from the day’s training and listen to Sam’s analyses of our performances. Each night we slept well. We had gone into training at Oberhof knowing that we had the best athletes ever in the program and having done better than we ever had before, including a third-place finish in an America cup race in Calgary. In Oberhof, we worked intensely and applied knowledge skillfully, so that on the day we left training camp on our way to the Lillehammer Games, we were one of the best, most finely tuned bobsleigh teams in the world, though we did not know it yet. Moments of Choice The work that was done at Oberhof could not have been accomplished in the absence of intense desire and unquestioned belief. Each of us wanted more than anything else to win a medal in Lillehammer. We visualized it, we dreamed it, we could taste it. We believed we could. Yes, we would not have the best seeding at this competition. Yes, we would not have the best equipment but we 227
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believed we were the best team there, and with a little different seeding at least, we could have proved it. Each morning in Oberhof, we were individually faced with a decision: to either tell Sam where to get off and to turn back over and go to bed, or to get up and face the bone chilling cold of the German morning. Each morning we chose the latter. Not because we were good guys or full of self-discipline or any such thing, but simply because so powerful was our desire we did not only rise but we rose with enthusiasm, excitement, and energy to milk every opportunity out of the day, to use every moment to its fullest, and to go to bed tired but full of expectation for the following day. What a way to live. The pain of an extra sprint was welcomed because it moved us toward our desires. Another hour in the cold would be pain if we were standing at a bus stop, but it is a joy when you are preparing yourself to live your dream. Same condition but different expectation. The mind is a powerful thing. We did not have to practice, we wanted to practice. People are not lazy or are not procrastinators by nature; they just don’t have desires that inspire them enough. Great Expectations We had just completed our second America cup race for the season in the four-man in Calgary. Tal and I were excited about the prospects for the team, which was completed with the presence of Wayne and Winston. Both Wayne and Winston had not been sledding for more than a month, but after a dismal start to training, they had adapted
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Work well and started to show signs of the dominance in the start that Winston in particular would develop fully later. We finished the race in third place and had garnered enough points to qualify for the 1994 Olympics. More importantly, our start time of 5.26 seconds was the best Jamaica had ever done on that track and was eighthundredths of a second faster than the 5.34 seconds which we posted in 1988 at the Olympics, the seventh fastest time for that run. We were making progress; perhaps black people could do this sport after all, I joked with Tal as we entered the start house. When the race was finished, we were third but Winston was furious. He stood in a corner of the start house pacing back and forth and murmuring something to himself. I had only met both him and Wayne a week earlier, although I was instrumental in their selection for the team after we held trials in Jamaica the summer of 1993. I was not sure what his problem might be, but I thought I’d find out. After getting only muffled responses to my first two inquiries, I telegraphed my growing impatience, and Winston burst out—“A caan’t tek losses, sir, I caan’t tek it.” This to me was fascinating. Not ten minutes earlier, Tal and I, who had struggled in the program for six years, were congratulating each other on the tremendous progress we had made. I would not say we were satisfied, but we were certainly encouraged. Still, not once in our conversation did we keep the bar high and the ultimate dream alive by saying we should be winning this race at this level. After all, the America cup was a step—and a large one at that—below the world cup which
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is where our Olympic competition was busy doing battle with each other. I understood Winston’s position and did not want to give him any comfort in coming third so I left him there dissatisfied and desiring to win. I relayed the story to Tal and in his typical curt fashion when dealing with athletes, he said, “Winston must think this is the corner league.” Live to Learn The corner league in Jamaica is a community-based soccer competition. Tal’s implication suggested Winston’s team may be able to just get up and win the corner league with minimum practice but this was different. I knew and I understood. What I believe Winston has learned over the years is that you may “disrespect” those who have been in the sport for a long time by challenging them, but you must respect them by learning from them. By the time Jamaica entered bobsleigh, the sport already had a ninety-year history. A lot of knowledge, experience, and tradition accumulated to various nations during that time. Indeed, despite the tremendous progress of nations such as Holland, France, Great Britain, the USA, and Jamaica in the sport, bobsleigh is still very much dominated by the Swiss, followed at a fair distance by the Germans with the rest of us a far way off. This is borne out not only by the quality of their athletes at the highest level—the World Cup, World Championships, and Olympic Games—but also by the depth of their athletes through the Europa cup and into the club system.
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Work To become good at the sport, we had to learn it and we had to learn it directly or indirectly from those who knew it best. In 1987, each athlete brought into the program was a star. Each was known and respected for one athletic endeavor or another; each was among the best—experts. Come bobsleigh. Thanks to the good sense of George Fitch, he immediately pulled off a balancing act the federation tries to continue to this day, which is to say to the new athlete, “You are a good athlete and you can be a good bobsleigher, but right now you don’t know diddly about the sport, so humble yourself and learn and maybe one day you can be as good in bobsleigh as you are in your other sports or better. It is not an easy thing.” It was difficult, sometimes even painful to watch Tal, an effective captain in the Jamaica Defense Force, a seasoned graduate of the Royal Military Academy of Sandhurst, be corrected time and time again by someone whose only achievement was knowing more about a sport than Tal did, but that was enough. After becoming accustomed to being revered as a sprinter on my college campus and then having to go to the Olympics to learn to push and load into this sled, and being told repeatedly “You’re not getting it, you’re not getting it,” I resisted the temptation of hitting back, and I humbled myself and learned because, indeed, I was not getting it. The US sent coaches down to assist us to set up our bobsleigh program in 1987, and we sat at their feet and learned. The fact that we beat them six years later in the Olympics at Lillehammer is a testimony both to our attentiveness and 231
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to their skill. It takes a certain brashness and confidence and, in a sense, a lack of respect for your teacher to keep in your heart a promise: “Everything I learn from you today I will use to beat you tomorrow. I will respect you but not fear you.” We have been able to turn this trick. To let your pride rise up, to stop listening, to try to make it on your own will certainly doom you to being forever a nonstarter. Not only did we listen, but we became students of the sport. We read extensively and came to understand and appreciate the sport perhaps more than many who grew up in it and took it for granted. We would watch endless tapes of races, pore over pictures in newspaper and magazine articles, and listen to old-timers talk about the sport as we sat down to hot chocolate and apple strudel deep in bobsleigh country in Austria or Germany. During races we would walk around and see what other athletes and coaches were doing and we would do the same without knowing immediately why. The art of tipping the sled on the side to move it more easily, of aligning runners, cleaning runners, cleaning spikes and grooves, tricks on loading the team into the sled, mental rehearsal of driving the track were all learned not from instruction but from observation. We perfected the art of gathering vast information from a single glance. The truth is that when in 1988 many European nations complained we were not ready for the sport, they were right. If we knew then how little we knew, then perhaps we would have been afraid, reluctant, and we would not have created a legacy and inspired millions. As knowledge is indispensable to success, so is ignorance to trying. Without
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Work knowledge we cannot succeed at any endeavor at the highest level; yet, if we know too much of the difficulty which the endeavor entails, then we may become afraid and not try. This point was brought to me forcefully one afternoon. I was visiting with my college advisor, Bill Parks, the founder of a white-water rafting supply company, Northwest River Supplies, in Moscow, Idaho, and where I worked, gaining experience in the business realm. Perusing the year-end statements for the company, he said, “If I knew before I started this company the difficulties I would encounter, I would not have touched it. Thank God I did not know and thank God I tried.” Sometimes “fools rush in where angels fear to tread” and are rewarded. Learning in life is unlike learning to ride a bicycle. It is not so much that we forget how to ride a bicycle—we never do—but it’s that life’s bicycles keep changing. And we always have to learn to ride again. Two days before the 1993 European Championship in La Plagne, France, Sam came up with this brilliant calculation regarding the velocity of the sled down the track. Compensating for the increased friction caused by higher centrifugal forces resulting from his proposed crew positioning, the team could improve its start by four-hundredths of a second and the team’s down time by fourteen-hundredths of a second. What this meant was that after two Olympic Games of pushing from the back of the four-man sled, I would now be pushing from the side and Wayne would be pushing from the back. After learning to load into a sled in the first place in four days, I had no doubt I could learn to load from
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the side in no time. I did perceive it as more difficult but I applied my tried-and-true methodology. First, I reminded myself of my desire to compete well in the Olympics. This boosted my motivation. Then I asked myself, Can you do this, Chris? and the answer was a resounding Yes. All that was left was to apply knowledge to my work ethic. I got a short lesson from Sam, then watched all the side pushers load into the sled for the rest of that evening’s training. The movements were imprinted in my mind. I sat in a corner and loaded into the sled fifty times in my mind, five sets of ten loads. I pulled out our sled from where it was stowed and practiced holding on to the push bar, running on the spot, and loading into the sled over the side. Several key points started to crystallize in my mind. Run close to the sled, lock my elbows especially the left one, take a quick glance at the bung before stepping on, slap my spikes on the side of the sled when stepping on, reach across to the other push bar, jump in, and extend legs forward to the side in one smooth motion. Nothing to it. I did four sets of five “dry” loads on the sled before we went back to the hotel that night; the next day I loaded perfectly into the sled at full speed and have loaded from the side ever since. Desire to, believe you can, then apply knowledge to work and you’re on your way to success.
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Work Helping Hands I met Kurt Einberger when I attended my first bobsleigh school in Igls, Austria, in 1989. I went with Michael White who fancied himself as a driver but was not having a very good go of it. He had difficulties from the beginning to the point he would not sleep at night thinking about the next day’s driving. “This is harder than my physics exam,” he told me in despair one night. I added to Michael’s troubles by requesting that we go from the top of the track on the next day of training, even though he still had considerable difficulty from the Damen’s (women’s) start. The first three times from the top of the track Michael crashed. This was all on the same day. The godfather of Jamaica bobsleigh, Sepp Haidacher, was on hand to hear my pleas. Mein Gott, mein Gott, Sepp—this he understood with his ears; no mas, no mas— this he understood with his heart. We were out of the bob school. Not wanting us to appear as if we were only there for vacation, Sepp arranged for me to push for a promising young driver, Kurt Einberger, in a race at the end of the bob school. Kurt’s tall, lanky frame with his reassuring smile gave me some comfort at the start of the race, and I pushed with confidence. Somewhere along the way I lost count of the corners on the track and could only remember reading somewhere that some bobsleigher had lost his life during a practice run for the Igls Olympics when his sled ran off the end of the track. I was not about to let that happen. Better to stop too soon than too late. As soon as I felt something 235
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like a braking stretch, I yanked on the brake and looked up to see Kurt turned around and smiling at me. I looked to the side and realized I was just on the straightaway out of curve nine and not on the brake stretch. I let go the brake and ducked my head. Kurt steered us to the end of the run and gave me a gentle tap on the helmet to remind me to pull the brakes. It cost him the race. We have never spoken about that event. Through my years of bobsleighing there have been many athletes who have shared their tools, knowledge, and homes, and who have never made fun of our inexperience or even incompetence despite the many opportunities. After thirteen years of being in the sport, it was Kurt who came to our assistance when in November 2001, at the Europa cup race in Winterberg, the two-man team of Winston Watt and Lascelles Brown found themselves without enough equipment, without a coach, and without assistance with the sled. It was Kurt, who knew us as beginners, who has seen us become fierce competitors, who stepped up and helped the team to a twelfth place finish in that race, the nation’s best result in a two-man event. He was known to have passed comments that were not favorable to us: stating once in Igls, when Tal was having trouble with a new sled and crashed several times, that we were “crash dummies” and on another occasion, commenting that our leading female driver had no future in the sport and should go “have babies.” Kurt in many ways personifies the ambiguity with which European athletes in particular viewed the team. Yet
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Work Kurt and other of our mentors not only gave us room to grow but also helped us grow. It is tempting to think of ourselves in the role of the underdog, oppressed by the establishment yet overcoming incredible odds to triumph. The truth is this: the story of Jamaica bobsleigh is more about those who helped us along the way than about those who tried to hold us back. Turns Unseen When we work, applying knowledge to effort, we do so with the hope of a particular outcome in mind. You want to finish in this time, to sell so many products, to lose so much weight, medal in the Olympics. Still, it has been my experience that very rarely do we get exactly what we worked for. The 1988 team worked hard to complete the competition and perhaps beat a few teams. The fact that we crashed was massive failure. We fell well short of our goal. Yet the hard fact of the situation is that if we had not crashed, then we would not have risen with determination, we would not have kept on going, and we would not have become a very competitive team. There would have been no Cool Runnings movie and in all likelihood there would not have been a Jamaica Bobsleigh Team today. The popular saying applies: Be careful of what you ask for; you might get it. This is a fact of life that bears itself out in the experiences of so many people, where some seeming disaster— some dream defeated or deferred—turns out in the fullness of time to be a blessing and the source of great future success. I am always amazed to hear people praise God for 237
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some distress which they suffered in their life where they have endured and have emerged as better persons. It is true and real that the best steel goes through the hottest flames. This phenomenon is an important one to recognize and embrace as we work toward the fulfillment of our desires. We will fail; we will miss the target. Years of work will sometimes seemingly come to naught. But we must take comfort in the knowledge that today’s rejected stone may someday become the cornerstone of a greater building. At the end of the 1994 Olympic Games, we stood at the bottom of the track triumphant—we had raced the best in the world at the biggest show for bobsleigh in the world and beat many of them. We were relieved and delighted. We hugged each other freely, laughed, and joked. I thought to myself, How wonderful it is that a single race can wipe away six years of pain. This is a reward of work that, in a moment, the fruit of your labor will wipe away its pain and suffering. Many times in the team’s despair, spawned by disappointment and perhaps trying too hard, I have reminded us all of a moment in the future when it will all be worth it. I was distraught when I got the news from Tal in November 2001 that the women’s team had crashed, and they no longer had a realistic chance of qualifying for the Salt Lake City Olympics. We regarded the women as the future of the program; they received priority funding and publicity. With an even field of new teams, we saw the women as having the possibility of winning a medal at the Olympics. Still, in two days, two years of work seemed to evaporate
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Work before my eyes. I was curious about Tal’s calmness in the situation. “What are you thinking?” I asked. “We started out worse than they did,” he answered. Indeed we did and lived to tell the tale. What you do with and draw from disappointment is more important than the disappointment itself. I was amazed to watch my daughter, Natalia, learn to ride her bicycle. Every time she fell, she would immediately get up and get back on. Even after cutting her knees and hands, she would get up and get back on. Within two days of taking off her training wheels, she was riding freely. The math to me was simple. She got back up one more time than she fell down, and sometimes this is all we have to do. It may seem to some inexplicable why, after massive failure, individuals they know keep rising up and keep trying. This to me has only one explanation: faith. We keep working, keep trying, keep getting up because we believe, we know, we have faith that one day it is all going to work out. Perhaps not in the way that we want or in the way that we have so meticulously planned, but one day in a way that blesses us in a surprising fashion, beyond our best plans, our work will pay off.
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Chapter 12 Running Things If I were to choose a single factor separating a successful organization from one not so successful, or a winning team from a losing team, the achievers from the mere participants, that factor would be leadership. Through good leadership, teams win and win consistently over an extended period of time despite the presence of occasional slumps. In basketball, this is borne out in the dynasty of the Lakers’ championship teams in the 1980s, the Bulls in the 1990s, and perhaps the Lakers again in the first decade of the twenty-first century. In soccer, we see it in Manchester United in the English Premier League and its habit of winning. General Electric under Jack Welch and Microsoft under Bill Gates have both achieved the long-term growth and prosperity that is the outcome of solid leadership. There are many cases of businesses or teams that do well occasionally, but more often than not this is the result of a fortunate
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confluence of people and circumstances as opposed to the systematic application of a philosophy of performance that works and is the hallmark of great and successful leadership. Creations To have imagined and implemented the concept of a Jamaica Bobsleigh Team, or for that matter any idea, process, product, or total business transformation exercise that requires deviation from the evident and trodden path, calls for a particular kind of leadership. The hallmark of this leadership is the ability to create a vision of an alternative future and more importantly to get others to believe in and commit to that vision. Everything that we see manifested in the physical world is the output of at least two creations. The chair you sit on, your TV, your computer, this book you are reading originated in the mind as a thought, an idea, and then through effort, hard work, and trial and error was converted into a physical thing. The conversion of all things from dreams to reality is a creative process, which cannot be short-circuited. The first creation is a mental creation and the second is the actual physical creation. The quality of the second depends heavily on the clarity of the first. Leaders are first creators and cause us to raise our heads from our feet and look to tomorrow. They say to us that tomorrow does not have to be a continuation of today, the next episode of a life on a beaten path. Leaders can create and articulate the shape of tomorrow without regard for the
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Running Things events of today. And if that vision, if that first creation is good enough, if it is clear enough, if it is articulated well enough, and if it can capture the imagination of those who would be involved in its realization, then the leader has fulfilled his mission. George Fitch and William Maloney were such leaders. Groups, companies, and organizations of all kinds need what I call the Maloney/Fitch duality. At the time of starting the Jamaica Bobsleigh Team, William Maloney was, at age twenty-eight, the managing director of Tropicana Jamaica Limited, a company that operated within the sugar and ethanol industries. This personal achievement is indicative of the qualities of the man. One can very easily become energized in his presence from simply listening to the ideas and arguments that seem to build to high pressure in his entire body, then spew from his mouth and his eyes in a continuous stream which engulfs the listener and leaves him or her convinced that, for example, it is a small matter to transport ice across the Sahara, or to turn a massive corporate loss into a massive profit by next quarter, or to start a bobsleigh team in Jamaica. He is the sort of person whom you approach heavy-laden with your plethora of seemingly insurmountable problems and leave wondering what on earth you were worrying about. His imagination is unlimited and inspiring, and his optimism is relentless and motivating. William not only thought “out of the box,” he lived “out of the box.” In his own mind, the idea of a bobsleigh team from Jamaica was as obvious as a speed skater from Holland or a sumo wrestler from Japan. At no point during the seesaw 243
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journey to the 1988 Olympic Winter Games did he seem to doubt the team could pull together, train, and compete in the Olympics. His mind was oblivious to obstacles and impervious to negativity. What we know today as Jamaica bobsleigh could not become a reality without this mindset. Once I went with a friend of mine, who was visiting from Idaho, to Galina Point in the parish of St. Mary to see the lighthouse there. It was late evening by the time we arrived. We looked at the lighthouse and then decided to venture out across the sharp rocks toward waves splashing against the cliff and spraying us with the warm salty water of the Caribbean Sea, which had rusted so much of the lighthouse. I had been to the spot a dozen times before and was quite aware of the dangers of the sharp rocks carved by wind, rain, and the sea herself. Halfway there I grew acutely aware of and entirely focused on the rocks beneath my feet, and I warned my friend to tread carefully. Busy looking down at where I was stepping, I did not notice at first there was no response, but then I looked up and repeated “Be careful” and noticed that my friend was transfixed, captivated by something in the distance. “Be careful,” I said again. Shaken from his spell, my friend kept looking in the distance and said, “Don’t look down at your feet, look up at the horizon.” I did and what I saw was the sun setting majestically on the distant horizon. It was breathtaking—orange-red between blue sky and deep blue ocean; I could just as well have been standing on velvet. It is easy to go about being so careful in life that we miss those things that inspire and
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Running Things transfix us. Every organization needs someone who is willing to remain focused on the horizon, to show the group a vision to inhale and enjoy, that lifts its spirits. This was William Maloney’s role in the early days of Jamaica bobsleigh. My friend eventually fell and cut his knees and hands on the rocks. This did not take away from the moment, but it is an important lesson. Looking way ahead to the possibilities is important and essential to exceptional achievement, but someone has to work on avoiding the pitfalls of the next step. Without the worker, the vision will shrivel to a mere dream like grapes left too long on the vine. Our worker was George Fitch—he was more than a visionary, he was a creator. The consummate goal-oriented pragmatist. The Honorable Bob Marley is often spoken of as a visionary for reggae music, taking it from its narrow confines to make of it a world music form. Yet if he were only a visionary, then he and his vision would have lived and died in the ghettos of Trench Town in Kingston. As a creator, Marley converted his vision into reality by means of work. While the visionary must free his mind, the creator must focus his mind. The idea of a bobsleigh team from Jamaica did not alarm George or compel him to dismiss it from his own thoughts. His reflex reaction to his initial thought was, Okay, let’s break it down to what we need to do and how long we have to get it done. Like an architect, he transformed creative ideas into a comprehensive design, and like a building contractor, he simply looked at the designs and asked: What am I going to need to build this house and where am I going to get it? Then he went about doing it step by step. 245
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Consider the state of play in September 1987 when the team was about to be formed. William had made his contribution conceiving and advancing the possibility of a Jamaican Bobsleigh Team. Yet by September, the team was still very much an idea, a vision on the distant horizon. What remains after the creation of a vision can be reduced to a single word—work. This is where George came in. His plan of action was to break down those steps on the critical path to making it to the Olympic Games. They were as follows: 1. Form a governing body for the sport of bobsleigh in Jamaica 2. Get this governing body accepted by both the FIBT and the JOA 3. Select athletes 4. Select a coach 5. Fund the team 6. Train the team 7. Participate in the Olympics. Missing Piece While it takes visionary leadership to show us what can happen, it takes management to make it happen. When we entered the sport of bobsleigh, the experts at the time gave us a formula for success that went something like this: the bobsleigh race is fifty percent start, thirty percent equipment, and twenty percent driving. We believed in and worked with this model for years, making sure we had an excellent start, accessing the best equipment we could af-
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Running Things ford, and giving our driver as much experience as possible. Still for the first six years of Jamaica bobsleigh, we made only modest progress even though we had applied our growing knowledge to our work ethic for sustained periods. Tal and I would often discuss the matter, pondering if we just needed better athletes to get a better push, raise more funds to buy better equipment, or to arrange more time for Tal’s practicing on the ice. Having accepted as fact the critical elements to success of which we were told, and not finding success, we concluded that all we needed was more of the same elements. Before we even set off on that path, though, I had a sense that more of the same would still not yield success. One day after a particularly embarrassing event at the track—sliding down the chute on rusty runners—we sat bewildered in our room when Tal said in a clear, matter-offact, even tone: “I have it figured out. What we need is management.” After the 1988 Games, Jamaica’s bobsleigh program had begun to wander aimlessly. In the years leading up to the 1992 Olympic Winter Games in Albertville, the team had grown to a dozen or more athletes. With three or four new drivers in the program, the focus and application of resources Tal needed to progress were dispersed and eventually wasted. More time was spent testing new pushers and selecting a team as opposed to intensively developing a select few athletes. It was not clear to the administration at the time whether selecting a good team seemed more important than selecting individual athletes. Nobody knew when training was scheduled, so we just trained on our own and did what seemed to be the right thing to do in the 247
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weight room or on the track. Our physical preparation lacked a comprehensive plan focused on and with a specific desired performance at a specific time. As a result, different athletes performed differently in training, with some developing the reputation of saving themselves for a short-term selection event as opposed to making sure they were ready to perform at the Olympics. Transportation was always late and disorganized; the sleds were never where they were supposed to be or at the time scheduled or with all the parts they would require. Athletes were showing up at the starting line with neither helmet nor spikes. It all came to a head one evening when the four-man team went to the start of the track for a practice run the day before a race. The competing athletes looked on in amazement as our supporting crew pushed the sled forward with the transport runners still attached. Transport runners are, as the name suggests, used during transportation of the sled while the race runners were carefully stored to be installed shortly before sliding. Race runners are cleaned to a mirrorlike finish to reduce friction on the ice and thereby increase speed. Transport runners are, on the other hand, normally extremely rusty, and it would be unthinkable to slide with them. We did not have time to change them; the sixtysecond starting clock was already ticking. Tal looked at all of us with disdain and, with thirty seconds before we had to start or be disqualified, told us to put the sled in the grooves at the start of the track. We did. The rust from the runners left a trail down the entire track to the
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Running Things braking stretch and the friction from the rust slowed the sled to a slow-motion study. Not once, not even in the sweeping Kreisel turn of the Calgary track, did we slide up onto the corner, staying instead glued almost to the bottom of the track, which was used for walking, not sliding. At the end of the run, the sled ground to a screechy halt before I had the opportunity to pull the brakes, and the crew had to get out to push it the rest of the way up the braking stretch to the loading bay. This event entertained our competition for the time remaining and added to the smoldering perception that the team just did not belong. Tal had endured enough. That evening he revealed to me his new theory on the requirements for success. Forget about fifty percent, thirty percent, twenty percent or whatever combination you may wish to propose. His new theory was simple. Ten percent is a few committed athletes and ninety percent is management. After the debacle of the 1992 Games played itself out, we applied this theory in earnest. Management In the ninth grade, I was overcome by some madness and decided to join my school’s cadet force. Perhaps it was because my father was the commanding officer, and I wanted to make him proud of me. I don’t know, but at any rate it was a bad idea. The army sort of thing appealed to my brother and my dad, but it was just not my thing. I do not respond well to being disturbed from my sleep and being shouted at. 249
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During one painful cadet meeting at the Jamaica Defense Force Headquarters at Up Park Camp, I stood in rank on the concrete pavement in front of the fire station and across from the Air Wing. I cannot recall what I did, but I am sure it was not good because I was shouted at and humiliated before the entire group by the Sergeant Major. I hated the cadets and I burned with anger toward Sergeant Major Leo Campbell. Within a month, I had dropped out of the cadet corps. Fifteen years later, I stood on that same spot with the now Major Leo Campbell selecting the few good athletes that would form the ten percent of Tal’s model. Major Campbell would be the ninety percent providing management. Tal could not have selected a better person. Leo was the first Jamaican president of the Jamaica Bobsleigh Federation and just what the doctor ordered. He remains to this day the most structured and organized person I have ever met. Under his management, the program made the painful transition from the charade of 1989-92 to 1993-94’s effort toward professionalism in approach and precision in application. Two o’clock became fourteen hundred hours. There was a responsibility matrix that outlined which athletes were responsible for what activities at what time. There was a morning briefing session, daytime monitoring, and an evening debriefing session; there was a schedule for transportation, eating, training, and sleeping. There was even a dress code. Tal considered drawing the line when Leo introduced an in-bed curfew of sorts but thought better of it to our
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Running Things eventual benefit. I myself had personal objections to the dress code, but neither Tal nor I, in whom rested considerable moral authority in the eyes of the other athletes, did anything to undermine Leo’s authority in the least. Athletes were showing up on time with spikes and helmets ready to compete, and runners were cleaned and put on the sleds. We appeared organized, approaching the benchmark of the Swiss and the Germans, and we were prepared to bite our tongues a little for this. By the time we showed up at the Lillehammer Games, we were an efficient, tightly knit unit. The military/businesslike approach had become almost second nature, and we proceeded about the goal of creating sport history and vindicating our participating in the sport with the efficiency and effectiveness of a special ops unit. The new model worked. The legacy of Leo’s effort continues as the program is run in a very structured, disciplined way. The current first vice president of the federation and Jamaica’s Chef de Mission to the 1998 and 2002 Olympic Winter Games—Major Owen “Dusty” Miller and former coach Gerd Leopold of Germany—have reinforced the need for and have demonstrated the benefit of management and order in the achievement of our goals. The case of Gerd Leopold is an interesting one and worth noting in one respect. Gerd was without doubt an effective manager. He ran his sports complex in Reise, Germany, well and he ran the team well. Each morning he would sit by himself at breakfast and finalize the day’s plan before sharing it with the team. At the end of each day, he would go through activity by activity, person –by person 251
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with a detailed assessment of performance. He kept you on your toes and kept you doing better. However, Gerd suffered from a drawback common to managers. He did not believe in the power of a dream. After a world cup race in Igls, Austria, in 1998 as part of our preparation for the Nagano Games, the team sat around in the start house assessing its performance. Based on our finish in that race, taking out those teams that would not be at the Olympics, and adding those teams from the Europa cup that would be at the Olympics, we figured we would be at about twenty-first place at the Games. This was the same team that had finished fourteenth in Lillehammer, and we believed we could do better than twenty-first. We concluded that with a little more work and better runners, we could be looking at a top-ten finish in Nagano. Gerd overheard our conversation. “No, no,” he said, “you must be realistic, realistic. Twenty-first is a good place and we can do this. We cannot do ten.” It was a downer. At the Nagano Games we did, in fact, finish twenty-first but that’s not the point. One should never step on another person’s dreams. Reality has little space in the world of the overachiever. Bread When at the 1994 Olympic Winter Games, the Jamaican Bobsleigh Team finished in fourteenth position, one position ahead of the remaining team from the United States, I estimated the research and development costs associated with developing a single US sled, of which there were sev-
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Running Things eral, as exceeding the cost of the entire Jamaica bobsleigh program. This achievement speaks to the validity and power of the philosophy of the Jamaica bobsleigh program, which has been explored in this book. Yet sheer financial resources combined with an effective philosophy can take you further than sheer philosophy alone. Man cannot live by bread alone, but man cannot live without bread. The challenge of adequately funding a Jamaica bobsleigh team in pursuit of an Olympic medal is a huge one. To mount a full-fledged medal campaign would now require about US $600,000 per year for six to ten years for the Jamaican team. In relation to other international programs, this amount is small, but I feel Jamaica could get the job done with a budget of this magnitude. For the first twelve years of Jamaica bobsleigh, the team netted sponsorship of US $700,000 in total, an average of close to $60,000 per year or a tenth of what is required. When the team returned from the 1988 Calgary Games, we were hosted at a reception by the then prime minister of Jamaica, the Honorable Edward Phillip George Seaga. Mr. Seaga had been particularly supportive in getting the team started, and indeed has assisted the team with sound advice, particularly on fund-raising issues, through the years. At the reception, Mr. Seaga quipped that neither his Harvard education nor his position as a state leader was able to get him featured in People magazine as enjoyed by the Jamaican Bobsleigh Team. He then went on to say the team would never have to worry about money again. We still worry, but far less because of support from the government of Jamaica.
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The Jamaica Bobsleigh Federation receives about US $40,000 annually from the Jamaica Tourist Board. The JTB has in fact been a tower of strength in support of the national bobsleigh program and has been the program’s longest and most reliable supporter. The relationship started in 1988 when Noel Mignott, deputy director of tourism for North America, saw the potential for vast positive publicity for the island the bobsleigh team could produce in the Winter Olympics, and he pushed through the initial sponsorship amount of US $10,000 in 1988. Mr. Mignott remains the major advocate of the benefits of a continued relationship between the JTB and the JBF. Since taking over as director of the Jamaica Tourist Board, Mrs. Fay Pickersgill has also kept her lines open to the federation and has continued to support a sponsorship arrangement with the bobsleigh team. Indeed, after the infamous events of September 11, 2001, and the lackluster US economy through the year, it became clear the meager hopes of securing corporate sponsorship had to be abandoned. If Jamaica was to compete in the 2002 Games, it had to find its own resources. Looking In The demise of one opportunity often leads to the creation of another—or simply put, when one door is closed another one is opened. Very few companies in Jamaica have the resources to sponsor the bobsleigh team, a fact which our own athletes struggle to grasp. The sport is particularly expensive. I have heard it said that only the eques-
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Running Things trian competition is more expensive among Olympic events. When, for example, a local company spends US $20,000 for a sponsorship of a sports event in Jamaica, that company can get an event which lasts for months and is participated in by hundreds of persons, many of whom would be directly in their target market. That same US $20,000 spent on the bobsleigh team could sustain six athletes training and competing in Europe for about a month. While publicity for the team abroad is huge, locally it is limited, and it does not impact significantly the very market in which the company is attempting to sell its products. The bottom line, then, is that while there are many opportunities to partner with local companies to leverage the team’s fame and particular message, the value of those opportunities are far below what would be needed to substantially fund the team. Still, we have partnered and will continue to partner with domestic companies for our mutual benefit as specific marketing opportunities present themselves. Jamaica’s multinationals are a different story. J. Wray and Nephew, maker of the famous Appleton Rum, was our first Jamaican corporate sponsor. The relationship had to be downgraded significantly around 1990 when the FIBT outlawed the display of promotional material of spirit products on sleds. J. Wray and Nephew has, however, continued to support the team including hosting the retirement function for Tal Stokes and providing support for our foray into the sport of skeleton, which was reintroduced into the Olympic Games after being absent since 1948. Still, the opportunity for them to step up as a major sponsor remains limited.
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We enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship with Sandals during the 1997-98 season leading up to the Nagano Games. During this relationship we had the good fortune of working closely with Andre Wade and Jonathan Rodgers of Sandals. Andre traveled everywhere with us, kept us well entertained, and made sure that Sandals got their full money’s worth of exposure. Tal and I were to develop a close personal and professional relationship with Jonathan Rodgers, which would lead to the opening and closing of other opportunities in the future. Despite their agreement with the value of identifying with the bobsleigh team, Sandals simply was not in a position to support the team, as it was faced with significant financial losses when the travel industry in Jamaica, already struggling to recover from the negative publicity surrounding the level of violence in Jamaica, slowed to a trickle of visitors after September 11, 2002. Sandals simply could not afford it. SuperClubs, a powerhouse in the all-inclusive vacation market, provided us with tremendous support for the 1999 FIBT congress but has opted not to be a major sponsor of the team. Red Stripe, which had sponsored us to the extent of US $275,000 over a period covering 1994 and then 1997-98, completely changed its marketing strategy and showed no interest in partnering with the bobsleigh team for the foreseeable future. These were pretty much the companies that we could approach for sponsorship, and none of them were in a position to step forward in a significant way. Those doors were shut.
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Running Things Jamaica’s domestic violence of early summer 2001, combined with the events of September 11 moved the government to provide a total of US $5 million for a special marketing campaign to bolster our critical tourism industry. Another door was opened. As soon as I became aware of the availability of the funds, I wrote to Fay Pickersgill informing her of our dilemma and the fact that at this moment in time, the most likely scenario is that Jamaica could not send a bobsleigh team to the Olympics. She was supportive but could not make such a decision on her own, and in fact, she had very little influence over the allocation of the US $5 million. The decision to support the team had to be made by a special committee set up to allocate the funds. She asked me to send a proposal to that committee. I did, and Tal and I followed it up with intense lobbying of the committee members. Our first stop was, however, not with a committee member but with the minister of tourism, sport, and entertainment, the Honorable Portia SimpsonMiller. I knew, as do all sport administrators in Jamaica, that I could count on her full and energetic support. She welcomed us, got an update on the program, and assured us that Jamaica would have a team in Salt Lake City. We then moved on to the various committee members (fortunately, one or the other of us had good relations across the membership of the committee), and we were able, without too much difficulty, to gain their support by pointing out that what we cannot do separately as individual companies and interested parties in the travel industry, we can do together. Jamaica bobsleigh would promote Jamaica and that benefited everyone at the table. The pro257
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posal pointed out that the team’s worldwide appeal was demonstrated by the fact that the team: • was very close to Bob Marley in terms of association with Jamaica; • projected a very positive image of Jamaica; • was one of the most recognized sports teams in the world; • consistently receives high Web site hits during the Olympics; • was the center of attraction wherever it went; and • continued to be bolstered by the popularity of the movie Cool Runnings. Our media exposure over the previous eighteen months included: • appearance on three Japanese TV stations • filming with a British production company • interviews with three European sports magazines • a women’s Sports Illustrated feature • a Fiat advertising campaign • filming for NBC’s Today show • coverage of push championships wins on CNN/SI • promotional tour with the JTB of Universal Studios, and • the filming of an Air Jamaica in-flight video. Committee member Zein Issa, vice president of SuperClubs, led the charge from inside. The Air Jamaica representative on the committee, Allen Chastanet, was suppor-
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Running Things tive and had, in fact, through Gregg Truman, been supporting the team informally for over a year by providing discounted tickets. The committee bought into the plan and authorized the expenditure that made Jamaica’s participation in the 2002 Salt Lake City Games a reality. Apart from the sustained support from the JTB, as well as to a lesser extent from Jamaica’s Sports Development Foundation, which expends monies earned from a lottery to improve Jamaica’s sporting facilities, the federation’s support from within Jamaica is limited. The substantial funding of national bobsleigh associations from the national Olympic committees of various nations is not available in Jamaica. We have to earn our support from private sponsorships. Value Proposition Soon after 1988, it became clear that we could not continue to bail ourselves out by selling T-shirts on the sidewalk, although that approach had served its purpose well. Instead, we needed a more sophisticated approach that considered the state of sports marketing industry with all its complexities. We normally begin our sponsorship search by developing a target list of potential companies that could benefit from an association with us. In our preliminary discussions, we generally make the point the Jamaica Bobsleigh Team name has worldwide appeal and recognition driven by the movie Cool Runnings and the extensive press coverage we receive wherever we go. 259
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The team’s image is positive, wholesome, and resonates particularly with those who want to represent achievement against the odds, or the dichotomy of a warm weather country participating in a cold weather sport. The specific properties that we have offered for sale are as follows: •
• •
• • • •
SPONSOR’s colors and design paint scheme on two-man and four-man bobsleighs used during competitive and training events, except the Olympic Games; SPONSOR’s colors and design scheme on outerwear and speed suits worn during training and competition, except the Olympic Games; Advertising space on outerwear and speed suits worn by athletes and on bobsleighs during competitive and training events. The advertising size and placement must be in accordance with the rules of the sport’s governing body, the FIBT; Display of SPONSOR’s logo on clothing worn by athletes and officials during television appearances and spot interviews on television worldwide; Acknowledgment of sponsorship and mention of SPONSOR by officials and athletes during press and electronic media interviews; SPONSOR’s signage on vehicles used by the team and officials while traveling in North America, Europe, and Japan; Use of Jamaica bobsleigh logos/name in conjunction with SPONSOR signage appearing on mer-
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• •
• •
chandise, i.e. T-shirts, sweatshirts, baseball caps, water bottles, winter wear, et cetera; Appearance of athletes at promotional events. Air and ground travel, room and board expenditures would be covered by SPONSOR; Hospitality events, opportunities—including courtesy rides in the bobsleigh with team members—for SPONSOR and its clients and other similar activities. A SPONSOR hospitality tent could be set up at races and events including world championships and Olympic Games; Exposure for SPONSOR at the various Jamaica Tourist Board appearances made by the team; Any other mutually agreed upon services/activities.
Most of our sponsorship deals to date have involved the exclusive or nonexclusive purchase of the properties listed above combined with a promotional campaign designed specifically by the company. For example, Red Stripe purchased the properties listed and then combined them with a summer-long promotional tour with four of our athletes along the east coast of the US. This worked particularly well for them. Sandals also purchased the properties in a co-branding arrangement but would set up hospitality events in the various locations where the team would perform, and requested that the team attend, socialize, and sign autographs. Other companies such as Fiat simply wanted to use the image of the team to promote their product. That company currently has a very successful promotional campaign running for a
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new car featuring the Jamaica Bobsleigh Team. None of our athletes were used; they simply wanted the rights to use the name and images of Jamaica Bobsleigh. Whatever the final arrangement, the key elements in a successful sponsorship arrangement are: 1. Delivery of real value to the sponsor: We do not ask for donations. We do seek to create mutual benefits by initially understanding the target firm’s requirements in its market and having the firm propose how, if it is possible, an alliance with the Jamaica Bobsleigh Team can help the company reach its goals. 2. The company needs to understand that we run a sports team, not a publicity outfit. The critical training and competition needs of the team therefore must be met. Athletes cannot be up late at a promotion when they have a race the next day, for example. 3. The sponsorship fee must be enough to either meet the team’s needs or else leave sufficient room for the sale of other properties or co-branding to allow the team to raise the required funds from other sources. Ongoing Challenge Despite our success in raising funds over the years, we still have a long way to go and must overcome certain limitations. First is the matter of TV. Sponsors pay attention when you can show them you’ll get them on TV at the right
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Running Things time in the right market. Our particular difficulty with this is that substantial TV coverage in bobsleigh is only available at the world cup level, where it is growing at a phenomenal rate due to the efforts of the vice president of international affairs for the FIBT, Paul Pruzynski, and others. The costs involved in making it to the world cup in the first instance and then making it among those sleds that receive coverage makes this option far-fetched for us in the short term. Fortunately, the very aura of Jamaica bobsleigh means wherever we go we get covered, but we have not to date been able to take advantage of the structured and rigid format of world cup coverage. Our second concern is the cyclical nature of attention to bobsleigh. Bobsleigh is perceived as an Olympic sport, and therefore attention to it comes and goes every four years with the Games. For three to six months in advance of the Games except Salt Lake City, which had its particular difficulties, I have been flooded with requests from companies wanting to do some sort of promotional deal. We have taken great advantage of this interest over the years. Salt Lake City was a unique case because it took place within the context of a slowing US economy interacting with great national pride in hosting the Games that mushroomed in congruence with the feelings of patriotism following the September 11 events. US companies were reluctant to appear un-American by supporting a team from another country. Unfortunately, three to six months after the Games such interest is gone, not to return until the cycle begins again in four years. In the meantime, in order to prepare athletes to 263
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compete successfully in February 2002, I need substantial funds in September 1999, not September 2001. The lumpy nature of interest in the sport outside of Europe, and the federation’s heavy reliance on private support, mean that throughout the history of Jamaica bobsleigh, we have had to run the program on a minimal budget, perhaps just fielding a two-man team in select events during the two years following an Olympic Games and then gradually increasing participation into the Olympic season. It is a way to survive but not a way to win an Olympic medal. Substantial and sustained funding therefore remains our ongoing challenge.
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Chapter 13 One Day at a Time The athletes who committed themselves to the Jamaica Bobsleigh Team did not do so for fame or fortune but for love of the sport and the universal allure of victory in competition. There is a certain appeal and intrigue that causes many to pause when thinking about a Jamaica bobsleigh team, as they reflect for a moment and ask, “Why?” This is a fair question, for as we have heard so often, there is no snow in Jamaica. There is no question that growing up in snow and ice provides a significant advantage to potential bobsleigh athletes. There is a certain sense of the nature of ice, its movement and response which creeps its way into the nervous system of children growing up in this environment that enables them to have a better feel for the sport initially. A Jamaican child running up and down the steep slopes of the mountains in central Jamaica does not develop an
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instinct that is programmed. Yet there are many factors in our favor. Bobsleigh is one of the most athletic of sports in terms of a potent mixture of speed/strength development and mastery of finely controlled movements. In a sense, ice is incidental to the sport in that it is the surface where you compete. More central to the sport is athletic ability. There is no shortage of this in Jamaica. But to learn bobsleigh, the vast majority of athletes must travel. There are twelve tracks in the world recognized by the FIBT, shared between nine nations. There are three tracks in Germany, two in the United States, and one track each in Switzerland, Norway, France, Canada, Japan, and Italy. Fifty-seven nations bobsleigh to some greater or lesser extent with nine nations having tracks. There is an awful lot of traveling in bobsleigh. It is a fact the best bobsleigh nations in the world have tracks. It is a chicken and egg situation. Are they the best because they have tracks, or do they build tracks because they are successful at the sport? My own view is that if you have your own track, it will boost your international performance tremendously. The USA proved this in the 2002 Games, where their investment in building the Park City track and in modifying the Lake Placid track paid big dividends. Jamaica is not likely to build a bobsleigh track very soon. Even if we stretch our minds to accept that the sliding surface does not have to be ice (it could be the bobsleigh version of “artificial turf”), the sheer cost of building and maintaining such a facility is prohibitive at the moment, though it should re-
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One Day at a Time main in the realm of floating ideas which may someday be held on to and implemented. The next best thing then is to immerse ourselves more fully in the services and facilities of nations that have tracks. The USA is losing its stranglehold on track–and-field dominance, particularly in the sprints, to other nations whose athletes live and train in the US. As long as this door is open, it is a legitimate strategy to be used to develop their athletes by nations who simply do not have the facilities. Often it is a win-win situation. Colleges get the best athletes in the world to help them win conference and national championships, and the athletes get the opportunity to train in the greatest sporting nation in the world. As we look to the future of the Jamaica bobsleigh program, all indications are that we should seek to establish a training center at a low-cost location that provides seasonlong access to a track as well as easy access to races. At the moment, the facilities at Lake Placid seem to fit the bill, although the Evanston, Wyoming/Park City, Utah combination is also attractive with the exception that the Park City track may not do as much to develop driver skill as will Lake Placid’s. The principle of concentration of force will also have to be applied. As a friend of mine pointed out recently, it is better to have a few children and be able to clothe and feed them well than to have many children and have them begging in the streets. The Swiss can have many teams. Perhaps three on the World Cup Circuit and three on the Europa Cup Circuit. But then they can take care of all these teams well. We can only provide the level of support required for high performance to a limited number of athletes. Our program into 267
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the future, then, will be limited. Perhaps two drivers at most in the program, and even then, one will be in the development stage within the federation’s succession plans. The winter-long training base approach offers two major advantages. First, the team can get far more ice time relatively inexpensively, and more important, drivers will have far more opportunity to develop their skills and to race. Second, the competitiveness in bobsleigh has grown tremendously during my time in the sport, and I have every reason to believe this will continue. This, combined with the growth of both women’s bobsleigh and skeleton racing, will have practical implications for Olympic qualification. On several occasions during its history, the sport of bobsleigh was under threat as an Olympic discipline because it lacked sufficient participation. This is now the least of the FIBT’s concerns, thanks to its current inclusive leadership and perhaps to the Jamaican team that did much through Cool Runnings to give the sport worldwide exposure. In the same way that the FIBT had to deal effectively with too few competitors, they can be expected to address, over time, the development of too many competitors at the Olympic level as a practical matter. The FIBT, I am sure, at least under its current leadership, is all for encouraging nations to participate at the Olympic level and for encouraging the Olympic ideals. The global nature of the Olympic movement, and its motto Citius…Altius…Fortius are fully supported and indeed actively enhanced by the FIBT. But we may well now be faced with too many disciplines, too many athletes, to preserve the quality of the racing facilities, organize and
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One Day at a Time coordinate the races, and ensure the environment for quality performances for the best teams in the world. I would not be surprised to see a tightening of the rules for Olympic qualification by the FIBT. The model for qualification by the men could very well soon resemble that for the women, where the top fifteen teams from the world cup qualify for the Olympics with a maximum of two sleds per nation. Perhaps the men’s version will be the top twenty-five teams from the World Cup Circuit, for example. I can only speculate at this time. Whether or not qualification requirements are modified, if we hope Jamaican Bobsleigh to one day be medal contenders and a force to be reckoned with on a sustained basis, then we will have to participate on the World Cup Circuit on an ongoing basis. This means one thing: more money. The idea of a lonely, broken, beaten man, taking on powers much greater than he, with resources he could only dream of, and defeating those powers is an alluring one. At times we see ourselves in that role, and indeed we have often done well beyond what could be expected of a team our size, considering our resources and lack of ice-training time and competition. Yet, we have made that stop on our journey. It was a satisfying one. We rested and basked there for a moment, but the Jamaica Bobsleigh Team must go on because that place is not our ultimate destination. To get to where we want to go will take cash and lots of it. Looking forward to Torino, Italy, in 2006, we will have to change our sponsorship solicitation strategy. By the end of the Salt Lake City Games we had reinforced, through the
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massive reach of Olympic media coverage, the impression we are a very good, very competitive bobsleigh team. The feeling of the courageous underdog, though as true as it has ever been, will continue to lose its appeal. As we continue to improve, such characterization will become an increasing concern. There is a fair segment of the public and sponsors attracted to us because we are the perennial underdogs who will never win but will keep trying. As we have begun to win, we provide less of that image to many sponsors. When you are a winner, not just a charming participant, then the strategic interest of potential sponsors must also change. The subsector of the potential advertiser market that needs the happy-go-lucky, fun-set-of-guys image is being alienated. We must in the coming years appeal to sponsors because we are a strong and successful team, which still has much to overcome. We are in the midst of this transition. In my time in the sport, the calls for interested sponsors have changed from companies wishing to play on the so-called joke of Jamaica Bobsleigh and our 1988 crash, to those who want to portray an image of the small guy taking on the big guy and sometimes winning. The next step is interest from companies that want to portray a high performance image of success. It is a process thrust upon us but which must be managed. As the transition takes place so must the persona of our athletes. The days of our athletes selling T-shirts on the sidewalk and singing in clubs are, but for the rare nostalgic request,
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One Day at a Time over. The whole show is now on the track and, hopefully, on Madison Avenue. As we go forward, one day at a time, there are several things that will guide us. The first and foremost is that we cannot proceed physically without starting philosophically. It is the philosophy of why and how you participate that sets the stage for successful competition. Without that base—the desire, belief, and work ethic—then the team would quickly lose its way, drift, and falter at the first sign of trouble. It is our philosophy that kept us going after the demoralizing effects of the 1988 crash; that kept us trying after the lack of significant progress in 1992; that brought us success in 1994; that gave us courage to find our own way in 1998; and that made us get up every morning and keep going forward, one step at a time, through Salt Lake City. All this despite the disappointments of failed sponsorships and dreams left in the wake of the crash of our women’s and four-man teams. The most carefully thought out and best-laid plans must be modified or even scrapped as circumstances change. Success depends on resiliency and determined execution in any given moment. This is true in sport, business, and practically every field of great endeavor. Jamaica was not the first warm weather country to bobsleigh. Mexico and Puerto Rico were there before us, but the records will show that we are the best. I read the following from the technology section of The Economist’s June 23, 2001 edition : …and what makes a successful innovation usually has little to do with the originality of the idea behind it. 271
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What it depends on—and critically so—is the singlemindedness with which the business plan is executed, and countless obstacles on the road to commercialization are surmounted, bypassed or hammered flat. Life in the fast lane is usually one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent pure sweat. Without our belief system, we would have stopped a long time ago, and all the world-class athletes and equipment would mean nothing. It is an inside out approach. If the inner attitude is right, then the application of outer aptitude will not go wrong. The second lesson is best introduced through excerpts from the poem If, by Rudyard Kipling: If you can dream—and not make dreams your master, If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with triumph and disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to broken, And stoop and build ’em up with wornout tools… Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it; And—which is more—you’ll be a Man my son! Each night of dreaming must be followed by a day of work, or your dreams will remain just that. All the carefully designed plans and schemes must be implemented and
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One Day at a Time modified as necessary if they are to move out of your head and have life on earth. If bobsleigh has taught me nothing else, it has taught me that failure is a farce. When we fall, we learn what makes us fall and we will not fall that way again; when bones and muscles of our body are broken or injured, they recover from that trauma stronger than they were before; when your opponents defeat and mock you, they make you stronger; when your hopes are dashed and blown away by life’s winds, those same winds fill your sails and move you on to your goal. I reject failure. As for success, it is the most dangerous and deceptive of blessings. It is a gust that comes along on the hot day of your struggles and cools you, but such may cool you so much the desire to go on is no longer there, and you may never reach your oasis. This great journey of Jamaica bobsleigh has also taught me to understand and deal with daring to take on the world and keeping the lure of fame in perspective. It was Marianne Williamson’s observation in her book, A Return To Love, that put to rest for me our right to be daring. It reads in part: Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that frightens us. We ask ourselves, what am I to be, brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are born to manifest 273
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the glory of God that is within us. It is not in some of us, it is in everyone. And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others. The many letters that we have received from young and old, rich and poor, healthy and sick confirms to me that we have indeed given some people a reason to let their light shine and to overcome their fears. One case I will never forget is of a young girl, nine years old, who through the Make-A-Wish Foundation requested that she meet a member of the Jamaica Bobsleigh Team. That blessing was mine. She stopped off in Montego Bay while on a cruise and I went to see her. Terminally ill, she inhaled each moment of life because it was, to her, precious. She wanted to know what made us want to overcome the challenges of going to the 1988 Games. I could not answer coherently because I knew from talking to her that the universal spirit that kept her taking the next step despite the pain, and kept her parents hoping for her recovery despite the experts’ opinion to the contrary, is the same spirit that kept us going in 1988. While driving back to Kingston, I understood something which has changed my life: No matter how difficult things get, how high the mountain or low the valley, or no matter how dark the hour, keep hope alive, find a way to survive, find a way to live to fight the next day. Like a boxer being pummeled in a corner, hold on until the bell rings because during the next round anything can happen. It is okay to
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One Day at a Time believe in the “Hail Mary pass” of life or the knockout punch from an otherwise-beaten fighter. You may go down but don’t stay down. Champions may lose, but they fight to the bitter end and often through a refusal to accept that end, it never comes but is turned once again into triumph. I have learned, too, that team chemistry is more important than individual performances, but that individual performance is key to team performance. On many occasions I have seen individual athletes dropped from a team because, even though their individual performance is better than that of another athlete, the team does better with the other athlete. It is difficult in these situations for an athlete to understand that for the team to be greater, he must be smaller. A quote from Rudyard Kipling’s Law of the Jungle may be helpful in explaining this point: Now this is the law of the jungle—as old and as true as the sky; And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die. As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the law runneth forward and back— For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack. The athletes that competed in the 2002 Olympic Winter Games were the fourth major group of athletes in the program. Each group has had to learn from the previous one what it is that makes Jamaica bobsleigh successful; that each of us has to lift those who follow onto our shoulders 275
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so we may reach higher. Those who do not understand the philosophy cannot succeed in the program. The challenges are too great to go it on grit and talent alone. Yet in January 2002 as I sat at my desk reflecting on the performance of the current team, I felt a sense of pride that we had kept going and kept getting better. I wondered if the world understood what Jamaica bobsleigh was in the beginning, what it has become, and what it hopes to be. Its hopes and dreams are not unlike those of any other athlete. Its struggles are not unlike those of people around the world who face challenges everyday in their lives. It is a tie that binds us all and in the end makes us more alike than different, a worldwide brotherhood of the human spirit. Just then, I turned on my TV set to catch up on the news on CNN when I saw an ad from the International Olympic Committee’s Winter Games promotional program, the same IOC that objected to our participation in the Games in 1988. The ad showed our 1988 team pushing off at the start and coming down the run, crashing, and then walking off the track. The words were: They came out of nowhere. They were the underdogs. No one thought they could win, and they didn’t. But the world sure loved them for trying. Here’s to the Jamaican Bobsleigh Team. Celebrate Humanity.
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One Day at a Time I thought to myself, Even if no one knows the facts of our story, everyone can be better off because of the spirit of our story, and maybe that’s more important. During the ad, in the background I heard the familiar and uplifting voice of Bob Marley singing, “Coming in from the Cold.”
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Index 5-3-2 rule, 149, 159 Abolition, 30 Admiral Cromwell, 27 Admiral Penn, 27 Adolf Erik Nordenskjöld, 45 African, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 36, 170 Air Jamaica, 23, 258 Albertville, France, 91 Alcan Jamaica, 100 Alexander Bustamante, 31 America Cup, 221, 227, 228, 229 American, 35, 48, 49, 50, 61, 71, 75, 95, 112, 146, 154, 158, 163, 165, 168, 170, 225, 263 American Airlines, 146, 165 Amsterdam, 47 Amsterdamsche Ijseclub, 49
Ancient Egyptians, 51 Anders Vestergard, 153, 172 Andre Lange, 170, 171 Andre Wade, 170, 256 Anton Sikharulidze, 167 Antonette Gorman, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 157 Antwerp, 41, 42 Apolo Anton Ohno, 169 Appleton Rum, 61, 75, 255 Arabs, 51 Arawakan, 25, 27 Arthur Tyler, 170 Arthur Wint, 34, 35 Athens, 43 Austin, Texas, 204 Austria, 53, 67, 123, 232, 235, 252 Axel, 51, 207 Axel Paulsen, 51
Cool Runnings and Beyond
Baron Pierre de Coubertin, 43 barrel roll, 125 Battle of Britain, 57 Beaches, 25, 122 Belief, 195, 211 Ben Johnson, 36 biathlon, 46, 47 Bill Gates, 241 Bill Parks, 233 Bill Schuffenhauer, 170 black people, 22, 186, 191, 229 Blue Mawga, 98 Blue Mountain, 24 BMW, 92 Bob Hayes, 35 Bob Marley, 22, 29, 76, 81, 92, 132, 186, 245, 258, 277 Bob Storey, 56, 135, 174 Brady Crane, 199 brakeman, 68, 74, 91, 92, 100, 104, 105, 131, 141, 170, 171, 190 Brent Rushlaw, 170 Brian Shimer, 110, 170 British, 22, 26, 27, 28, 29, 42, 52, 73, 84, 90, 221, 258 Bronx Community College, 199, 204 Brutus, 116
Bulls, 241 business school, 211 Calabar High School, 32, 33, 203, 213 Calgary, 56, 61, 65, 66, 70, 72, 73, 74, 77, 78, 79, 81, 82, 91, 97, 99, 103, 104, 109, 128, 140, 150, 151, 158, 173, 185, 186, 195, 201, 202, 205, 224, 227, 228, 249, 253 Calgary Olympics, 56, 61, 77, 195 Calgary Stampede, 82 Canada, 22, 42, 52, 201, 266 Captain Morgan, 153 Caribbean Sea, 23, 25, 27, 244 Caribs, 25, 26 Caswell Allen, 65, 72, 201 Cathy Freeman, 164 Cathy Levy, 65 CD, 132 Certificates, 176 Chamonix, 43, 44, 46, 55 Charles Barkley, 200 Charles Dickens, 48 Charles Mason, 56 Charlie Francis, 190, 217 Cheech and Chong, 96 Chef de Mission, 119, 251 Chinook, 195
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Index Chris Blackwell, 23 Christian, 53, 112, 123, 145 Christian Mathis, 53 Christian Meili, 112 Christiania, 46 Christmas, 69, 101, 102, 121, 213, 222 Christopher Columbus, 23, 26 Clarendon, 137, 183 Clas Thunberg, 49 Clive McDonald, 137 Club Med, 91 CNN, 146, 258, 276 Codrington, 29 Cole, 34 Columbia Pictures, 96 Comte Renaud de la Fregeoliere, 55 Congress, 54 Continental Championships, 151 Cool Runnings, 87, 95, 97, 98, 99, 113, 136, 156, 237, 258, 259, 268 Cornwall College, 215 Coromanti, 29 Cortina, 159, 170 Cresta, 53, 54 cross country ski, 46 Crown Prince Frederic William, 54 Cuba, 23, 25, 28
Cum Laude, 204 Cyclist, 38 Czar Alexander II, 48 Daniel Joy, 166 Dave Chapelle, 172 Dave Smith, 204, 220 David Parra, 169 David Pelletier, 166, 167 David Weller, 38 Dawn Steel, 95, 96, 97, 98 DDG runners, 132 Denise, 123, 150 Deon Hemmings, 36, 138 Desire, 65, 179, 181, 183, 185, 188, 190, 191, 234 Desmond Tutu, 163 Devon Harris, 63, 65, 68, 69, 72, 74, 77, 84, 86, 90, 91, 92, 128, 129, 130, 131, 136, 196, 201 Diagio, 153 Didier Gailhaguet, 167 Don Lanpher, 218, 219, 244 Donald Quarrie, 36, 62 Doug E. Doug, 98 Doug Sharp, 170 Dresden, 146 Dudley Tal Stokes, 32, 64, 65, 68, 69, 72, 74, 77, 78, 80, 81, 83, 84, 85, 86, 89, 90, 91, 92, 98, 99, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 110, 111, 112, 113, 116,
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118, 119, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 128, 130, 131, 132, 136, 138, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 149, 150, 155, 157, 158, 164, 165, 173, 174, 175, 176, 183, 184, 186, 203, 204, 205, 206, 209, 214, 215, 216, 221, 228, 229, 230, 231, 236, 238, 247, 248, 249, 250, 255, 256, 257 Duke Franz Ferdinand, 42 Dusty Miller, 119, 251 Dutch, 48, 49, 158 E.W. Bushnell, 49, 50 East Africa, 36 East Germany, 49, 127 Easter, 213 Economists, 217 Eddie Murphy, 96 Eddie the Eagle, 73 Edinburgh, 48 Edward Eagan, 41 Edward Phillip George Seaga, 253 El Toro, 215 Elena Berezhnaya, 167 Emmanuel Baptist Church, 203 England, 27, 28, 48, 50, 140 English, 28, 49, 57, 63, 241 English Channel, 57
English Premier League, 241 equalizer, 216 Eric Heiden, 49 European, 25, 28, 52, 55, 96, 107, 152, 232, 233, 236, 258 European Championships, 55, 107 Evander Holyfield, 172 Evanston, Wyoming, 128, 267 Everton Wanliss, 112, 204, 220 Exodus, 22 faith, 89, 131, 191, 210, 211, 239 Fay Pickersgill, 254, 257 Fear, 83, 192 Federation International de Bobsleigh et de Tobogganing, 54, 55, 56, 71, 72, 87, 106, 113, 135, 136, 138, 139, 149, 151, 153, 159, 174, 246, 255, 256, 260, 263, 266, 268, 269 Fédération Internationale de Ski, 46 Fiat, 67, 150, 258, 261 FIFA, 162 Finland, 43, 45, 47, 49, 52
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Index four-man, 41, 70, 72, 75, 76, 77, 81, 82, 83, 84, 90, 92, 101, 102, 104, 105, 107, 108, 109, 111, 116, 121, 122, 130, 131, 133, 137, 147, 151, 154, 158, 159, 170, 171, 172, 185, 188, 195, 196, 202, 205, 216, 221, 228, 233, 248, 260, 271 France, 43, 91, 120, 185, 186, 202, 221, 230, 233, 266 Freddie Powell, 64, 65, 68, 69, 72, 73, 76, 77, 88, 89, 223 Freeman Watkins, 217 French, 43, 52, 54, 91, 112, 158, 167 Fridtjof Nansen, 45 Fugees, 222 G. C. Foster College, 146 Gabriel, 140, 210 Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 210 Galina, 32, 203, 244 Galina Point, 244 Garnett Jones, 137 Garrett Hines, 170 Gary Kasparov, 23 General Electric, 241 George Bush, 163
George Fitch, 34, 36, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 74, 75, 76, 79, 80, 81, 86, 87, 88, 89, 91, 96, 97, 163, 180, 181, 210, 231, 243, 245, 246, 253 George Kerr, 36 George Rhoden, 34, 35 George Taylor, 63, 64 Gerd Leopold, 111, 120, 130, 189, 251 Germany, 47, 48, 49, 53, 54, 55, 120, 127, 133, 146, 155, 232, 251, 266 Ghana, 29 Gleaner, 38, 106 Gold, 22, 28, 34, 120 Golden Triangle, 29, 36 Grace Jackson, 36, 138 Greece, 43 Greeks, 51 Greenland, 45 Gregg Truman, 259 Gregory Haughton, 36 Ground Zero, 164 Gustav Weder, 55 Guyana, 25 Gwendal Peizerat, 167 Hannes Conte, 126 Harold Chudaj, 111, 120, 122, 126 Harry Belafonte, 22
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Harvard, 253 Helsinki, 33, 34, 35 Herb Mckenley, 33, 34, 35, 62 Herschel Walker, 171 Hispaniola, 25, 27 Hockey, 51, 75 Holland, 48, 230, 243 Hollywood, 96, 164, 171 Holmenkollen, 46 Houston Rockets, 88 Howard Siler, 66, 74 Hurling, 52 Ibibio, 29 Ibo, 29 Ibuprofen, 222 Idaho, 76, 77, 98, 101, 102, 108, 123, 139, 204, 217, 220, 233, 244 Igls, 67, 68, 69, 70, 90, 91, 92, 118, 122, 123, 127, 138, 235, 236, 252 Images, 208 Imperial Hotel, 143 Innovators, 207 Innsbruck, 67, 90 Inside the NBA, 200 International Olympic Committee, 43, 71, 72, 92, 108, 139, 161, 162, 163, 174, 276 International Skating Union, 49, 168
Ireland, 52 Irina Slutskaya, 168 Iroquois Indians, 47 Italy, 53, 112, 159, 165, 266, 269 Ivan Ballangrud, 49 J. Wray and Nephew, 255 Jack Welch, 241 Jackson Haines, 48, 50 Jacques Rogge, 163, 174 Jamaica Bobsleigh Federation, 61, 72, 99, 116, 136, 250, 254 Jamaica Bobsleigh Team, 81, 97, 103, 108, 128, 129, 165, 180, 210, 237, 242, 243, 259, 262, 269, 274 Jamaica Defense Force, 62, 63, 99, 138, 250 Jamaica Railway Corporation, 64 Jamaica Tourist Board, 65, 105, 127, 154, 155, 254, 258, 259, 261 Jamaican Gleaner, 106 Jamie Sale, 166 Japan, 123, 133, 142, 143, 145, 150, 243, 260, 266 Japanese management style, 133 javelin thrower, 210 Jay Leno, 172
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Index Jeff Bodine, 110 Jennifer Morgan, 141 Jerk Chicken, 210 Jerome Lewis, 102 Jerry Buss, 88 Jill Bakken, 170 John 3 16, 126 John Barnes, 63 John Candy, 98 John Glen, 164 John Issa, 23 John Ivey, 153 Johnny Carson, 73 Jon Turteltaub, 98 Jonathan Rodgers, 131, 132, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 149, 256 Judges, 51 Judith Blackwood, 138 Juliet Cuthbert, 36 Julius Caesar, 116 Karen Nelson, 22 Katarina Witt, 81 Kazuyoshi Funaki, 164 Ken Barnes, 62, 63, 64, 181 Kenneth Blanchard, 150 Kenya, 37 Kibbie Dome, 139 King Ferdinand, 24 Kingston, 24, 28, 31, 61, 62, 64, 137, 139, 146, 180, 188, 203, 245, 274
Kingston Harbor, 24, 28 Kinnula, 45 Koenigssee/Berchtesgaden, 54 Königssee, 155 Kreisel, 85, 113, 249 Kurt Einberger, 235, 236 La Plagne, 80, 90, 91, 104, 107, 120, 121, 172, 185, 202, 221, 233 Lake Placid, 41, 49, 55, 65, 69, 70, 77, 80, 158, 159, 161, 223, 266, 267 Lakers, 88, 241 Landesportheim, 67, 90 Lascelles Brown, 137, 148, 151, 152, 158, 172, 175, 176, 183, 184, 236 Lech Walesa, 163 Lennox Miller, 36 Leo Campbell, 99, 103, 107, 111, 116, 130, 250, 251 Leon, 98 Leopold Frey., 51 Leslie Laing, 34, 35 Liguanea Plain, 24 Lillehammer, 102, 104, 105, 107, 113, 131, 141, 148, 164, 181, 187, 188, 190, 216, 224, 227, 231, 251, 252 Lillehammer Games, 105, 227, 251
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Linda Fratianne, 168 Linford Christie, 22, 36 London, 34, 42, 48 Lord Glentoran, 54 Los Angeles, 38, 88 Los Angeles coliseum, 88 Lou Gossett, 88 Lydia Widerman, 47 Lynn Siefert, 96, 97, 98 Madison Avenue, 271 Magda Julin, 42 Major Bulpetts, 53 Make A Wish Foundation, 274 Malik Yoba, 98 Mama Lashy, 37 Manchester, 137, 241 Mandeville, 137 Marcus Garvey, 22, 31 Marianne Williamson, 273 Marina Anissina, 167 Mark Hill, 149, 155, 217 Mark Schelereth, 217 Martin Annen, 171, 175 Maslow, 192 Mathematicians, 217 Matson, 34 May Pen, 137, 183, 184 MBA, 101, 133, 218 McGill University, 52 Mercedes Benz, 68 merchandise store, 171 Merlene Ottey, 36, 62, 138
Mexico, 27, 91, 271 Michael Eisner, 96 Michael Fennel, 62, 71, 88, 91, 117, 130, 170, 172 Michael Goldberg, 98 Michael Jordan, 200 Michael Keller, 220 Michael Lee Chin, 22 Michael Morgan, 131 Michael Ritchie, 96, 97 Michael White, 22, 54, 62, 63, 65, 68, 69, 72, 74, 77, 83, 84, 86, 91, 92, 96, 97, 98, 131, 196, 200, 201, 202, 220, 235 Michele Kwan, 168 Microsoft, 241 Mike Kohn, 170 Mike Tyson, 88, 91, 172 Military, 231 Miller Lite, 88 Mind, 207, 218 Minnesota, 45 Monaco, 53, 68, 72, 116, 137, 147, 148 Montego Bay, 30, 137, 274 Montreal, 38 Moore, 34, 35 Moscow Police Department, 218 Moscow, Idaho, 77, 98, 233 Mount Van Hoevenberg, 41 Munich, 118, 122, 225
286
Index Nagano, 74, 98, 115, 117, 119, 123, 124, 127, 128, 131, 133, 143, 189, 252, 256 National Hero, 21 NBA, 22, 200 Negril, 122 Nelson Chris Stokes, 22, 33, 86, 102, 118, 146, 204, 206, 234 Netherlands, 47, 49 New York City firemen, 164 Niger, 29 Nigeria, 29 Nion Tucker, 56 Noel Mignott, 254 Nordic, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47 Norman Manley, 21, 31 Northwest River Supplies, 76, 233 Norway, 43, 44, 45, 47, 48, 49, 102, 108, 120, 141, 155, 157, 181, 224, 266 Norwegian Ski Association, 46 Oberhof, 104, 127, 224, 225, 227, 228 Ocho Rios, 27, 140 Of Love and Other Demons, 210 Olympic Village, 206
Olympic Winter Games, 41, 43, 47, 52, 55, 56, 72, 91, 105, 138, 139, 156, 161, 163, 166, 205, 224, 244, 247, 251, 252, 275 One Love, 22 Orestes, 75 Oslo, 46, 47, 48 Ottavio Cinquanta, 168 P.C. Harris, 67, 68, 73, 132 Pacific Century CyberWorks, 145 Park City, 128, 136, 138, 150, 159, 171, 172, 174, 185, 266, 267 Pat Brown, 80 Pat O’Donahue, 174 Patricia, 68 Patrick Ewing, 22 Patrick Robinson, 100 Paul Bogle, 31 Paul Pruzynski, 263 Paul Skog, 128 Pentagon, 154, 163 People Magazine, 71, 253 Pepsi™ , 225 Persians, 51 Pete Brugnani, 90 Philadelphia, 49 Port Maria, 137, 203 Portia Morgan, 139, 141, 156, 173 Portia Simpson-Miller, 257
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President Kotter, 72 Prime Minister, 253 Prince Albert of Monaco, 53, 68, 72 Prince Michael, 54 Puerto Rico, 25, 271 Pullman, Washington, 205 Queen Isabella, 24 Ralph Freimuth, 76 Ralph Samson, 88 Randy Jones, 170 Randy Will, 112 Rawle D. Lewis, 98 Red Hills Road, 203 Red Stripe, 105, 106, 107, 108, 127, 129, 210, 256, 261 Reise, 120, 127, 131, 251 Remi Korchemny, 199 Rice Eccles stadium, 163 Richard Parke, 56 Ricky McIntosh, 91, 92, 102, 132 Romania, 53, 56 Romans, 51 Royal Military Academy, 231 Rudyard Kipling, 272, 275 Russian, 49, 112, 199 Salmon River, 77 Salt Lake City, 128, 156, 159, 161, 162, 163, 165,
166, 168, 171, 184, 238, 257, 259, 263, 269, 271 Salt Lake City Department of Airports, 166 Sam Bock, 102, 103, 115, 130, 132, 187, 189, 221, 223 Sam Koduah, 204 Sam Sharp, 45 Sam Sharpe, 30 Samuel Clayton, 64, 65, 68, 69 Sandals, 23, 122, 127, 131, 132, 256, 261 Sandel, 109 Sandhurst, 231 Sarah Hughes, 168 Scandinavia, 45, 46, 48 Scandinavian, 43, 45, 47, 48 Scotland, 48 Seagrams, 153 Seoul, 78, 111, 205, 218 Sepp Haidacher, 68, 110, 120, 124, 151, 235 September 11, 154, 254 Shakespeare, 116 Sir Winston Churchill, 186 Sitel, 152 Sorbonne, 43 Soviet team, 52 Spain, 27 Spanish, 24, 26, 27, 28 Spartan Gym, 139
288
Index speed/strength, 266 Spencer Johnson, 150 Spokane, Washington, 79 Sports Development Foundation, 127, 259 Squaw Valley, 46, 55, 56 St. James, 137 St. Mary, 32, 137, 203, 244 St. Moritz, 41, 53, 54 St. Petersburg, 48, 51 Stadium, 64 Steven Bradbury, 169 Stockholm, 42, 46 Stuart Thorpe, 108 Stucky, 37 Summa Cum Laude, 204 Summer, 33, 41, 42, 49, 54, 92, 101, 138, 164, 213 Sumo wrestler, 243 SuperClubs, 23, 256, 258 Sweden, 41, 42, 44, 46 Switzerland, 41, 53, 55, 89, 266 Tainos, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 52 Taiwanese, 68 Talent, 184 Tara Lipinski, 168 Team–Harris, 128 Tendo Oto, 143, 144 Teressa, 123 Terry, 203 Theodosius, 43
Thorleig Haug, 47 Time Magazine, 22 TNT, 200 Today Show, 258 Todd Hays, 170 Tokyo, 131, 132, 143, 146 Tom Maloney, 87 Tommy Swerdlow, 98 Torino, Italy, 269 track record, 175, 176 Trench Town, 245 Trond Knaplund, 25, 79, 108, 120, 137 Tropicana Jamaica, 243 T-shirts, 68, 69, 73, 75, 91, 259, 261, 270 two-man, 66, 68, 72, 74, 82, 83, 91, 92, 103, 104, 106, 107, 108, 112, 121, 130, 131, 136, 146, 151, 154, 158, 164, 170, 173, 184, 187, 188, 196, 205, 224, 236, 260, 264 Tyrolean, 68 underachievement., 208 University of Calgary, 81 University of Idaho, 76, 101, 102, 108, 139, 204, 217, 220 Up Park Camp, 99, 250 USA, 22, 23, 52, 54, 56, 66, 110, 112, 170, 204, 230, 266, 267
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Utah, 128, 138, 163, 267 Venezuela, 25 ventre a terre, 55 Venture Soft, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 149, 152 Vienna, 50 Virtual Tourist Board, 142, 143, 144, 146, 149, 152 Vonetta Flowers, 170 W.A. Parker, 50 Washington State, 195 Wayne Blackwood., 137 Wayne Thomas, 100, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 109, 110, 116, 118, 120, 123, 125, 126, 127, 132, 137, 148, 149, 158, 173, 174, 187, 188, 225, 228, 229, 233 West Africa, 36 West Indian, 29 Whitfield, 34, 35 William Billy Fiske, 41, 56, 57
William Maloney, 61, 97, 243, 245 Wilson, 102 Winston Watt, 100, 102, 104, 109, 110, 118, 123, 125, 126, 127, 137, 148, 149, 151, 152, 154, 157, 158, 159, 165, 172, 173, 176, 183, 186, 222, 225, 226, 228, 229, 230, 236 Winterberg, 118, 119, 155, 157, 158, 236 Winthrop Graham, 36 Wolfgang Hoppe, 55, 74, 224 Work, 213, 216, 217, 223 World Push Championships, 137, 147 World Trade Center, 154, 163, 164 Wray and Nephew, 75, 153, 255 Wyoming, 128, 174, 267 Zein Issa, 258 Zeus, 43
290
Bibliography Books Carnegie, Jimmy. Great Jamaican Olympians. Kingston, Jamaica: Kingston Publishers Limited, 1996. Kollbach, Ingeborg, et al. Fédération Internationale de Bobsleigh et de Tobogganing 1923-1998: 75th Anniversary. Oggiono, Italy: Cattaneo Paolo Grafiche, 1998. Marquez, Gabriel Garcia. Of Love and Other Demons. New York: Penguin Books, 1995. Sherlock, Philip and Bennett, Hazel. The Story of the Jamaican People. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers Limited, 1998. Williamson, Marianne. A Return to Love. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1992.
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Other “70 Years, Many Magical Moments.” washingtonpost.com: Winter Olympics History, 6/29/02 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpsrv/sports/longterm/olympics1998/history.htm, “A Complete Collection of Poems by Rudyard Kipling.” http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/kipling.html6/29 /02 “Americans Second, Third in Four-Man Bobsled.” ESPN.com: Winter 2002, http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=1339679&type=Headlin eNews, 5/02/02 “An Historical Look at Modern Figure Skating.” Skating History.com—Home Page, http://www.skatehistory.com, 6/29/02 “Bakken, Flowers Break Drought, and a Landmark.” ESPN.com. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=1336769&type=Headlin eNews, 5/02/02 Caple, Jim. “The Cold War Goes On.” ESPN.com, updated 02/12/02 Dawn Steel—Women in Film Newsletters, http://www.videoflicks.com/newsletters/womeninfilm/ “Figure Skating History.” Http://www.98skate.org/history.htm, 6/29/02
292
Bibliography “For Right or Wrong, Skating Dominated the Spotlight.” ESPN.com: Winter 2002, http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=1340150&type=Headlin eNews, 5/02/02 “Gale Wins in Backyard, to Parsley’s Delight.” ESPN.com: Winter 2002, http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=1337325&type=Headlin eNews, 5/02/02 “Geography and History of Jamaica.” http://www.discoverjamaica.com/geography.htm, 6/29/02 Gorrell, Mike. “Grand Opening: Utah Takes the World Stage.” Salt Lake Tribune “History of Jamaican People.” http://www.ktis.net/~rpmusgra/jamhist.htm, 6/29/02 “Hockey’s History.” http://cnet.windsor.ns.ca/Pages/Hockey/history.html, 6/29/02 ISU Web Site, http://www.isu.org/flash.html, 6/29/02 Keown, Tim. “Parra Carves out Spot for himself.” ESPN, The Magazine, 02/19/02 “Kwan Falters Again; Hughes Comes from Nowhere.” Associated Press, updated 02/22/02 “Ohno Crashes Yards from Finish Line.” ESPN.com, updated 02/17/02
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“Results—Bobsled.” ESPN.com, http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/winter02/results/bySport?sportId=o , 5/02/02 “Shea Wins, and Says Late Grandfather Helped Out.” ESPN.com: Winter 2002, http://sports.espn/print?id=1337293&type=HeadlineNews, 5/02/02
“Skating.” The Virtual Library of Sport, http://sportsvl.com/rest/skating.htm, 6/29/02 “South Korean DQ’d, Officials Promise Protest.” Associated Press, updated 02/23/02 “Speed Skating History.” http://www.angelfire.com/pq/pvlovers/history.html, 6/29/02 “Speedskaters Take Home 11 Medals.” ESPN.com: Winter 2002, http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=1340595&type=Headlin eNews, 5/02/02 Sports Navigation Page, FIBT.com, http://www.fibt.com/thesport/sportnav.htm, 6/29/02 Stewart, Kirsten. “Ceremony About Fun and Games.” Salt Lake Tribune The Cradle of Hockey/“Long Pond—Birthplace of Hockey.” http://www.gameofhockey.com, 6/29/02
294
Bibliography “Traditional Skiing in Finland.” http://virtual.finland.fi/finfo/english/skiing.html, 6/29/02 “Winter Olympics.” http://www.sportz4u.com/issport/Olympic/fnlsite/History/fhist/w trin.htm, 6/29/02 Wojnarowski, Adrian. “Fratianne Hopes to See More Changes.” Special to ESPN.com, 02/16/02
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Photos
Cool Runnings and Beyond
The founder of Jamaica Bobsleigh, George Fitch.
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Photos
After George Fitch and William Maloney agreed on the idea of entering a Jamaican team in bobsleigh competition, their first challenge was to recruit athletes. Shown is a part of the poster announcing tryouts for the first Jamaica Bobsleigh Team.
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Cool Runnings and Beyond
Tal and Michael prepare to make history by being the first Jamaicans to compete in the Winter Olympics—in the two-man bobsleigh competition. Devon, holding the sled, was to join the two-man team and me for the four-man competition.
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Photos
Surrounding the sled, Devon, me, Michael, and Tal. Getting into a “stillness of mind” before yet another practice push and load on the push track in Calgary. I had days to become ready for Olympic competition. Freddie, far right, is looking on.
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Cool Runnings and Beyond
The pressure of learning the sport in days strained the relationship between Tal and me. When he asked, “Are you in?” I replied, “I’m in.” With that commitment, we looked to the future.
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Photos
We proved all the critics right when we crashed in Calgary. Without this low, we would not have achieved the heights we did.
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Cool Runnings and Beyond
At the Albertville Games, Tal and I finished in thirty-sixth position in the two-man, one place behind Devon and Ricky.
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Photos
The four-man team of Ricky, me, Michael, and Tal finished an unimpressive twenty-fourth in La Plagne, though our start times continued to get attention.
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Cool Runnings and Beyond
With only two years to the Lillehammer Games, maximum use had to be made of training time, including Tal pushing his son Christian in a shopping cart in front of his house for push practice. Improvised efforts such as these would pay big dividends.
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Photos
Sam Bock, at once brilliant and esoteric, would fashion and implement a program to lead the team to our greatest Olympic performance.
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Cool Runnings and Beyond
The Lillehammer team (left to right) was Tal, Winston, Ricky, me, Wayne, and Jerome.
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Photos
Tal and Wayne got off to an excellent start in the two-man event, starting at number twenty-eight and finishing eighteenth.The team was later disqualified for being overweight. The disappointment did not last long.
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Cool Runnings and Beyond
With sled technician Stuart Thorpe (with backpack) overseeing things, Tal and Winston moved the sled onto the scale to be weighed the day before the race. We had learned a hard lesson from the two-man.
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Photos
At the start of the four-man race in Lillehammer—a cauldron of intensity.
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Cool Runnings and Beyond
Under the watchful eyes of Sepp Haidacher (back), we competed successfully in the 1998 Igls World Cup Race despite a series of serious crashes in training.
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Photos
Tal, me, Winston, Wayne, and Michael take in a team photo in Reisa before leaving for Nagano.
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Cool Runnings and Beyond
At the Olympic Village in Nagano, Gerd poses with the fourman team for a picture. Gerd would always say that even after coaching his 1994 team to Olympic gold, he was never so famous nor did he have to pose for so many photographs.
314
Photos
Devon returned to the program to compete in Nagano. His determination and will to compete were admirable, though they took him too far at times.
315
Cool Runnings and Beyond
Devon and Michael on their way to a twenty-ninth place finish in the two-man in Nagano.
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Photos
Fast but unfortunate, the four-man team finished twenty-first in Nagano. Only Winston from the 1994 and 1998 teams was to continue to another Olympic Games.
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Cool Runnings and Beyond
On returning to Jamaica from Nagano, my daughter Natalia rummaged through my bobsleigh kit. “Yu not bobsleigh again, Daddy?” she asked. “No, sweetheart,” I replied. “Yeahhh,” she screamed. I would not be gone for months at a time anymore.
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Photos
Winston Watt and the godfather of Jamaica bobsleigh, Sepp Haidacher, embrace at the 1999 Fédération Internationale de Bobsleigh et de Tobogganing Congress hosted in Jamaica by Grand Lido Braco and Trelawny Beach Hotels of the Superclubs chain. The circle had been closed.
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Cool Runnings and Beyond
At the end of the 1999 FIBT congress, Tal was presented with the President’s Trophy by FIBT president Robert Storey. It is the highest honor for an athlete in the sport of bobsleigh. In his presentation speech, Storey described Tal as one of those rare athletes who “gives more to his sport than he takes away.”
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Photos
In 1999, Trond Knaplund, my longtime college friend, Norwegian bobsleigher, and track-and-field coach, came to our island as coach of the Jamaica Bobsleigh Team. He coached the men’s and women’s teams to two gold medals in the World Push Championships. Had he adequate funding, I believe he would have taken Jamaica to the Olympic medal podium.
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Cool Runnings and Beyond
Jonathan Rodgers and I sign a sponsorship agreement as Tendo Oto and Tal look on. With this agreement we were poised to become a dominant presence in the sport and to challenge for Olympic medals, but it was not to be.
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Photos
Winsome Cole and Portia Morgan won the two-woman push at the World Push Championships in Monaco in 2000 and 2001.Consecutive crashes in Winterberg in 2001 would eliminate them from Olympic qualification.
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Cool Runnings and Beyond
Lascelles Brown and Winston Watt not only won the World Push Championships in 2000 and 2001, they went on to prove themselves as the fastest starting team on the ice at the Salt Lake City Games.
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Photos
I commissioned this charcoal-on-canvas drawing from G. Wayne Smith (
[email protected]), a brilliant young Jamaican artist. The drawing depicts the four-man team at the start of one of the heats at the Lillehammer Games. I entitled the piece “One Fine Day.”
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Acknowledgments To God be the glory for the things he has done. Many people, most in ways unknown to themselves, have made this book possible and I would like to thank a few especially. Thanks to my wife, Michele, who has endured well the many hours of my preoccupation with this work and has encouraged me every step of the way. She was the first to read the manuscript and has provided invaluable feedback. Her daily battle with lupus and her continued zest for life reminds me always who our real heroes ought to be. Thank you, Natalia, my beloved daughter, for giving up our playtime, however reluctantly, to allow me to write. I hope that this effort will someday encourage and inspire you. Thanks, Jalissa, for making me feel that this book is important. I wish to recognize and thank my brother, Tal, who has been such a fortress in my life and who is the heartbeat of the Jamaica bobsleigh program. During my bobsleigh career, I have competed with many athletes but have bonded
with none as much as I have with Winston Watt and Wayne Thomas. We suffered and triumphed together, borne each other’s pain, and encouraged each other. We are brothers all forever. I thank my father for showing me the virtues of hard work and my mother for instilling in me an unwavering commitment to excellence. My sister, Terry, in her own way encouraged Tal and me through our highs and lows. For this I am grateful. To my grade ten English teacher, Ms. Hemmings, wherever you may be now, to my muse, thank you for encouraging me to write. Evette Clarke-Hendricks and Joan Forrest have both given me the benefit of their views on the book. David Hinds, Wayne Smith, and Jermaine Royes, each in their own way assisted with their incredible creativity in graphic and technical matters. Gregg Truman and Michael Fennel all assisted in garnering invaluable endorsements of this undertaking and I am grateful. Thanks to photographers Ken Ramsay and Colin Reid for advising and making their professional skills available to me on this project. Thank you, George Fitch, for flying to Jamaica on such short notice to sit down for all those hours and reminisce on the early days of Jamaica bobsleigh and for following up on my progress with the book or lack thereof. I am especially grateful to Bob Storey, the FIBT president at the time of this writing, for agreeing to write the foreword to this book, and to all those people around the world who have blessed the Jamaica Bobsleigh Team with their kindness. Bindley Sangster was generous in giving me the benefit of his vast experience in the publishing business. My edi-
tor, Jim Cotton, has been committed and responsive to this book project. His admiration of the team and its efforts encouraged me to press on and made me feel that this indeed is a story worth telling. Finally, this is my first book, and I consider myself blessed to have had the talents and expertise at American Book Publishing, specifically through C. Lee Nunn, Rebecca Beck, Cheri Carroll, and Diane Black, Terri Hayes available to me. May God bless you all.
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About the Author The year 1988 became a cornerstone for author Nelson “Chris” Stokes. While training for the Seoul Olympics, he received the call to join the fledgling Jamaican Bobsleigh Team. Since then, he’s become an international bobsleigh figure and is closely identified with one of the most beloved and widely recognized sporting teams across the globe. Chris emerged on the world sports scene and the Olympic stage after starring in track-and-field events at leading Jamaican high schools. He won an athletic scholarship from the University of Idaho where he graduated cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in finance. He graduated with honors from the Stonier Graduate School of Banking, Georgetown University, after earning his MBA at Washington State University, Pullman.
Cool Runnings and Beyond
This financial training and his inherent athletic ability served both Chris and the Jamaica Bobsleigh Team well during its formative and maturing years. Chris has participated in four Olympic Games as an athlete and has served as president of the Jamaica Bobsleigh Federation since 1995. As its chief administrator, he’s been shaped by his experience on the track and down the icy chute. In turn, this experience has helped him forge the unique programs and philosophy of the Jamaica Bobsleigh Team. He is currently vice president of business development for the Victorian Mutual Building Society, a leading financial institution of the Caribbean.
Please visit www.coolrunningsandbeyond.com.
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