Feel the Rythym, Feel the Ride.

It's fairly safe to assume that most people's first real insight into to the sport of bobsleigh, came via the quirky Disney film; Cool Runnings which was loosely based on the story of the Jamaican bobsleigh team's debut at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary. Anyone who watched the movie will remember Jon Candy, who played the the infamous retired bobsleigh coach who took the crew of Jamaican sprinters and misfits and turned them into a reputable bobsleigh team, who became Jamaica's first representation at the Winter Olympics.


Ironically enough, one of our Pilots, who drives the tourist bobsleigh runs during our public bobsleigh sessions at the Sliding Centre, where I work, is a man by the name of Pat Brown. Interestingly enough, Pat is the actual original coach of the 1988 Jamaican Bobsleigh team who went to the 1988 Calgary Olympics, and is the man who Jon Candy's character Irv Blitzer is based upon. Although Pat still seems to relish his semi-infamy - he places cards (see a copy below) in a basket after each run and asks for donations, he seems slightly perturbed that Disney never consulted him, or any of his Jamaican athletes in creating the film, and that none of them ever saw a dime from the profits of the film. He did tell me, that the movie's narrative is a far cry from the actual events and that his Jamaican athletes were all ex-military and not the crew of misfits represented in the film. He also went on to tell me that, unlike Irv Blitzer in the film, he was never caught for cheating and in fact never represented the USA in an Olympics, despite being a team member for many years, and coaching various teams over and above Jamaica to various Olympic Games. Right now, we have the FIBT Bobsleigh world cup at the Track and Mr Pat Brown, the original cool runner, is coaching the Koreans, in seemingly another tale of underdog glory.