Harris wants medal-contending bobsled teams

In 1988 when the first Jamaican bobsled team at an Olympics walked over the finish line after a crash in their fourth round in Calgary, the quartet of Dudley Stokes, Michael White, Chris Stokes and Devon Harris were catapulted into hero status.

But according to Harris, while everybody thought the team’s performance was heroic, he was a little disappointed. And furthermore, believes the team could have challenged for a medal.

Although all four of the team managed to walk away unscathed from the Winter Olympics incident, their pride had taken a significant bruising.

“The first thought that came to my mind after the crash was, ‘Wow, how embarrassing,’” Harris told Betway.

“All of us were apprehensive to go back home because we felt that we had let down our country, we thought people would be upset and ridicule us.

“Man, it couldn’t have been any different. People were very supportive, even to the point where the government made stamps with our faces on, so that was quite an honour.”

As gratifying as it was to receive a hero’s welcome back to Jamaica, Harris explains that he felt the public were being lenient with him and his team.

“People were so welcoming and proud, but they were making excuses for us,” he says.

“They would say that we’d done well, considering we’re from Jamaica and we don’t have snow, blah, blah, blah, which was not an argument used at any point by us.

“We didn’t care about the fact we were from Jamaica, we just felt that we should be able to master the sport in five months and do exceptionally well.

“I could be delusional, but with adequate funding I think we could have become legitimate medal contenders,” said Harris.

He wants this bobsled team to take on that attitude as well.

“That’s the challenge going forward, to move on from considering that qualification is a victory in itself,” said Harris.

Jamaica, for the first time since those 1988 games, have entered four events at a Winter Olympics with alpine skiiing, the women’s monobob, the four-man bobsled, and the two-man bobsled.

But still, Harris’ words ring loud; qualifying isn’t enough. And though there isn’t a team at the Winter Olympics expected to challenge for a medal, Harris believes there has been progress in the eight times the country has qualified to the Winter Olympics.

“We’re working our way there and it’s taken a while, but we want to be a team to be reckoned with.”

One of sport’s greatest underdog stories has not finished yet.

The above article was repurposed from one titled ‘The story of the Jamaican Bobsled Team’ on https://blog.betway.com/ written by Will Rook.