'Cool Runnings 2'? Korean bobsleigh team turns to Jamaica for inspiration.

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'Cool Runnings 2'? Korean bobsleigh team turns to Jamaica for inspiration.

Published: 29 Oct. 2025, 12:39 Updated: 29 Oct. 2025, 17:34

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

National bobsleigh team members Kim Jin-su, right, and Kim Hyeong-geun practice their start technique, a crucial factor in their race time. The duo, aiming for their first Olympic medal, recently trained with Jamaica’s national bobsleigh team. [KIM KYOUNG-ROK]

The Korean bobsleigh team is ready to sprint off into victory by taking a page out of a seemingly unlikely book, Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt.

Korea’s two-man bobsleigh team, pilot Kim Jin-su, 30, and brakeman Kim Hyeong-geun, 26, declared their goal for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy, saying they will shave off their start by "not just 0.01 seconds, but more than a full second before the Milan-Cortina Olympics."

Their secret weapon: a joint training project with Jamaica’s national bobsleigh team.

Bobsleigh is often called a sport of split seconds, where even a hundredth of a second can decide victory.

At the 2016 International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation World Cup in Whistler, Canada, the team led by Won Yun-jong claimed Korea’s first-ever World Cup gold medal by finishing just 0.01 seconds ahead of Russia. At the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, Germany and Canada tied down to the hundredth of a second, 3 minutes 16.86 seconds, to share the gold medal in the four-man event.

Meeting with the JoongAng Ilbo at the PyeongChang Olympic Sliding Centre, Kim Hyeong-geun recalled his first Olympics in Beijing in 2022.

“It all ended in the blink of an eye because we were so nervous,” he said. “We don’t want Milan to be the same. This time, we’re aiming for a medal.”

Won Yun-jong, Kim Jin-su, Jung Hyun-woo and Kim Dong-hyun of Korea start the 4-man heat 2 at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Saturday, Feb. 19, 2022, in the Yanqing district of Beijing. [AP/YONHAP]

The start — when athletes push the sled roughly 40 meters (131.2 feet) before jumping in — is crucial in determining the final time. A faster push means stronger acceleration down the track. That’s why the Korean team turned to Jamaica, home of world-renowned sprinter Usain Bolt, to learn how to explode off the line.

From Oct. 16 to 23, the Korean duo trained with Jamaican bobsleigh athletes to master faster starts.

“If we can cut 0.1 seconds from the start, the overall time improves by about 0.3 seconds,” said Kim Jin-su. “You can practically predict the rankings from the start times alone.” A strong start, he explained, usually guarantees a podium finish as long as the run is clean.

Their private coach was Jamaican sprinter Tyquendo Tracey, who competed alongside Bolt on the national track team before switching to bobsleigh. Tracey’s personal best in the 100 meters is an impressive 9.96 seconds.

“Jamaica is still famous for the movie 'Cool Runnings' [1993], but their bobsleigh program is on a different level now,” said Kim Hyeong-geun. “Tracey taught us that during the first one or two seconds, we should lower our heads 20 to 30 degrees more for a more explosive start.”

Won Yun-jong and Kim Jin-su compete in the two-man bobsleigh event at the Yanqing National Sliding Center in Beijing in 2022. [AFP/YONHAP]

The Korean team is close to the medal range — just fractions of a second away. At last year’s World Cup in Altenberg, Germany, they finished fourth with a time of 1 minute 50.27 seconds, only 0.46 seconds behind the bronze-winning British team.

Kim Jin-su, a former sprinter himself, remains optimistic.

“The top three teams are all established veterans, while we’re a young team with huge potential,” he said. “By fully incorporating Jamaica’s start techniques, we plan to cut at least half a second from our record before the Olympics.”

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY PIH JU-YOUNG [[email protected]]