By Elton Tucker, Assistant Sport Editor
Jamaica'S Olympic team enters the stadium during the opening ceremony for the Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City on Friday night..- Reuters
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah:
JAMAICA'S bobsleighers are getting VIP treatment in Salt Lake City and the hope is that the two-man team can back up all this on the ice when competition starts at the weekend.
"We have been receiving a tremendous reception. At the opening ceremony we got a standing ovation from the spectators who were sitting next to where we walked in and this continued until we sat down," delegation head Major Owen "Dusty" Miller said yesterday.
The Jamaicans' popularity here has been such that, on short notice (they were only told at midday yesterday), two-man team members Winston Watt, Lascelles Brown and Clive McDonald were invited by host broadcasters NBC to last night's live telecast of the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
While the Jamaican bobsleighers have long dropped the 'cool runnings' image, Major Miller said the movie had helped a great deal in spreading the popularity of Jamaica and Jamaican bobsleigh.
"The movie has really helped to give us worldwide recognition and has helped to open doors for the bobsleighers," Major Miller added.
The bobsleighers here are also doing their bit to get closer to the community in which they are competing. As part of an effort for the bonding of athletes with Americans, Jamaica's bobsleighers have been adopted by the small town of Evanston, 45 miles to the north of here on the border of the states of Utah and Wyoming.
The Jamaican team has been training there for the past month and the community has helped with food, transportation and providing facilities for physical training.
In return, the bobsleighers have been visiting schools, senior citizens' homes and according to Major Miller 'anything the mayor asks us to do'.
Coach Captain Dudley Stokes Jnr., who flew into Salt Lake City Sunday night, said team doctor Ernie Cosman, a Canadian, is impressed by the good physical shape of the bobsleighers and is looking to improve on the 14th spot Jamaica gained in the four-man event at Lillehammer in 1994.
Tomorrow, Thursday and Friday, there will be training runs at the Utah Olympic Park, the bobsleigh venue for the Games. There will be two heats each day.
Training runs are mainly to familarise competitors with the track, letting them get a feel of how the 'runners', the section of the bobsleigh which touches the ice, adapt to the surface.
Assistant Sport Editor Elton Tucker is a guest of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) at the XIX Winter Games in Salt Lake City. His trip was made possible through the Jamaica Olympic Association (JOA) under the IOC's International co-operation project.
