"People you know they can't believe, Jamaica we have a bobsled team!"
- Cool Runnings.
One of my all-time favourite Olympic movies is Cool Runnings with John Candy. Although the team was a media darling at the Calgary Olympics, they have since faded into memory. You will all be pleased to know that the Jamaican bobsled team still exists, they have just failed to qualify for the last two Winter Olympics.
The logic is sound. Jamaica produces many of the world's fastest sprinters, and speed at the start is an enormous advantage in the sport of bobsled. In theory this is the one Winter Olympic sport that Jamaica should thrive at. John Candy was on to something, and yet despite 20+ years of trying they have yet to translate their speed advantage into Olympic success. While perhaps we cannot cheer for the Jamaican bobsled team at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, we can still ask the question, what is your favourite Olympic themed movie of all time?
I voted for Cool Runnings, but I am also a big fan of the film Without Limits about Steve Prefontaine. There were two movies made around the same time about the same athlete, but the one starring Billy Crudup and Donald Sutherland was unquestionably the better of the two films.
We were disappointed when the Jamaican team didn't enter the stadium. They've fallen victim to the changed criteria after '88, designed specifically to filter out teams like themselves and people like Eddy the Eagle.
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