The Jamaican bobsled team is back, descendants of the squad that floundered and flipped their way into the world's consciousness at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary.
As of this weekend, the 2008 incarnation of the team immortalized in the 1993 Disney film "Cool Runnings" will join the 2,300 residents of the B.C. village of Pemberton, north of Whistler, to get an early start on preparing for the 2010 Games.
The team -- a Caribbean contingent in an ice-bound sport -- will make Pemberton a North American training base for practice and preparations for the Whistler World Cup in February, as well as qualifying runs for 2010.
The town couldn't be happier. The mayor says the Jamaican commitment to Pemberton gives the community a stake in the Vancouver Games.
"It's a neat opportunity for the community to really actually feel like we're part of the whole Olympic process. We're participants now," Jordan Sturdy said.
The matchmaker for Pemberton and the Jamaicans was Ian Porter, the Vancouver-based operator of a 19-room lodge in Pemberton, who offered free accommodation for the six members of the team after he read media reports that they were looking for somewhere to stay.
He is mindful of the unusual nature of Jamaicans making a mark in a winter sport, but notes that the Jamaicans are serious athletes.
"It's a very motivational story," he said. "They're sort of going against all odds, and they don't get a lot of support at home because it's not a sport that anyone in Jamaica thinks about or knows about or probably cares about. I liken it, when I talk to people about it, to a Canadian team trying to compete in world sumo wrestling."
Devon Harris, the Jamaican team's original captain who will be helping the current squad get settled in Pemberton over the next week, said the bobsledders have had a love affair with Canada since the team made its debut in Calgary two decades ago.
Members of the Pemberton community are looking at sponsorship options to help cover other costs for the team, who will be in Whistler through next spring, then home for the summer, and back in the fall for the run to 2010.
The team has had its successes and failures since Calgary. It did not qualify for competition in the 2006 Torino Olympics but has high hopes for Whistler.
Team spokesman Stephen Samuels said in an e-mail exchange with The Globe and Mail that current team members have mixed feelings about the legend of the 1988 squad and the movie "Cool Runnings."
"The new young members of the team appreciate the legacy of the film and understand that the film is the adaptation of the true story, and frankly want the next version of the film to tell their story."
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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