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| Happy Birthday Bob! |
In honor of Robert Nesta Marley’s birthday and the opening ceremonies for the Sochi Olympics tonight (in the US), I thought I might post a brief history of Jamaica’s sole contribution to world of arctic sports. Bobsledding. If you are a certain age, you are likely familiar with John Candy coaching to Doug E. Doug, Leon, and Rawle D. Lewis to Olympic…..defeat, but the team’s history has been marked by reasonable success.
The team was initially founded by American businessmen George Fitch (now mayor of Warrenton, Virginia) and William Maloney. Originally interested in Jamaica's push-cart culture, the two recognized that the nation’s sprinters would serve valuable speed in the bobsled’s push starts. The 1988 team finished dead last at the Calgary games, but gained attention as the game's underdogs story.
