Number 3: The Jamaican bobsled team walked their sled to the finish line at the Olympic Winter Games in Calgary and embodied like no other athlete/team before them the Olympic slogan: It´s taking part that counts! (Video here)
The story of the Jamaican bobsled team which took part at the Winter Olympics 1988 sounds like a Hollywood movie and the story of the team was indeed portrayaled in the movie Cool Runnings a couple of years after their appearance. But it is not the fact that their story is Hollywood-style which makes them Number 3 of my Olympic Moments but their pure passion to take part at Olympic Games.
First of all the question has to be answered, why four Jamaicans even get the idea to drive a bobsled at the Olympics with Jamaica being a tropical country in which no snow exists at all!? Responsibly for it are two American business men who had business links to Jamaica (which is nothing unusual for American business men). It was rather by coincidence that the two saw the Pushkart derby, which is a race of homemade carts to race down a steep hill in Jamaica in August every year. The two Americans realized that pushkart is very similar to bobsleigh and so they decided to manage and coach four Jamaicans how to drive a bobsled. Obviously, the first practiced in Jamaica with old bobsled which were not up to the standards of any of the European high-tech bobs but they tried very hard and finally qualified for the Winter Olympics.
Although the team competed very poorly in the first three heats, the became the most popular team amongst the bobsleigh fans because they were the underdogs, coming from a tropical country. Furthermore, they improved more and more throughout the competition. However, the Jamaicans became more famous for their attitude than for their athletic ability. In a time in which sport became more and more competitive and winning counted more than anything, the only wanted to take part in the Games. An attitude which has not been witnessed at the Olympics for a long time although Pierre de Coubertin announced it as the Olympic motto in 1927.
The Jamaican bobsled team embodied this attitude like nobody else. And this became particularly evident after their bobsled crashed in the fourth heat: although the crash was a very hard and painful one, the Jamaicans walked their bob to the finish line as they wanted to finish the competition. Not because they wanted to win anything but because they were TRUE sports men!
The famous bob consisted of: Winston Watt, Thomas Wayne, Clive McDonald and Ricky Simms.
Unfortunately, the Jamaican team did not qualify for the Vancouver Olympics although all they wanted was TAKING PART.
