Home > Sports > Olympic Sports

Jamaica’s bobsleigh team rides into Olympic competition on a sleigh borrowed from Korea

Published: 02 Feb. 2026, 16:20 Updated: 02 Feb. 2026, 16:26

The Jamaica bobsleigh team, with pilot Shanwayne Stephens, is seen in action during Heat 3 of the Four-Man Bobsleigh race at the Yanqing National Sliding Centre at the Beijing 2022 Olympic Games in China on Feb. 20, 2022. [EPA/YONHAP]

“Feel the rhythm! Feel the rhyme!”

More than three decades after the film “Cool Runnings” (1993) turned Jamaica’s bobsleigh team into a pop-culture symbol, the country is heading back to the Olympics — this time riding a sleigh loaned by Korea and carrying a résumé that now includes international victories.

Jamaica secured quota spots for the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics in three events: women’s monobob, men’s two-man and men’s four-man bobsleigh. The women’s two-woman team sits first on the reserve list. It marks another step forward for a tropical nation that has steadily carved out space in a sport dominated by cold-weather powers.

The men’s two-man and four-man teams will be piloted by Shane Pitter, with Andrae Dacres, Junior Harris, Tyquendo Tracey and Joel Fearon rotating as push athletes across the lineups.

Former bobsleigher Won Yun-jong, now a candidate for the International Olympic Committee Athletes’ Commission, said Korea signed a cooperation agreement with Jamaica in September of last year and agreed to loan the team a four-man sleigh through the Olympics. The sleigh, made in Austria and valued at more than 100 million won ($68,500), was the same model Korea used at the World Championships last season.

Jamaica quickly made the most of it. In November last year, the Jamaican four-man crew used the sleigh to claim a landmark victory at the North American Cup in Whistler, Canada — the country’s first international win in the event.

A still from the 1993 sports comedy film ″Cool Runnings″ [WALT DISNEY PICTURES]

Jamaica’s Olympic history in bobsleigh dates back to the 1988 Calgary Games, a breakthrough moment that later inspired “Cool Runnings” and its enduring rallying cry: “Feel the rhythm! Feel the rhyme! Get on up, it’s bobsled time!”

The team’s best Olympic result remains a 14th-place finish in the men’s four-man at the 1994 Lillehammer Games.

This time, Jamaica arrives with both experience and depth. Mica Moore, who finished eighth in the women’s two-woman bobsleigh while representing Britain at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics, will compete for Jamaica in women’s monobob after acquiring Jamaican citizenship in 2024.

“To keep going even when hurting. To keep going when tired. To keep going when others try to halt you. To keep going even when times are happy. Never give up!” Moore wrote in an Instagram post announcing her Olympic qualification.

The Jamaica bobsleigh team is pictured in this post uploaded by the Jamaican Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation's Instagram. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

Jamaica has built continuity in recent Olympic cycles. The team competed in two-woman bobsleigh at PyeongChang in 2018 and sent athletes to a program-record three events at the 2022 Beijing Games. The Milan Cortina Olympics will again see Jamaica entered in three disciplines, reinforcing its place as one of winter sport’s most persistent outliers.

If a “Cool Runnings” sequel ever arrives, this generation of Jamaican bobsleigh athletes may not need cinematic triumph. The film’s coach, Irving “Irv” Blitzer, offered a reminder that still resonates: “A gold medal is a wonderful thing. But if you're not enough without one, you'll never be enough with one.”

Bobsleigh competition at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics will take place from Feb. 12 to 22 at the Cortina Sliding Centre.

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 PARK LIN [[email protected]]