Jamaican bobsled team has coach quit on them at Olympics
By Nick Tylwalk
The first ever women’s bobsled team from Jamaica will go into the Olympic competition next week without a coach.
The Jamaican bobsled team is so famous it actually had a movie made about it. But that was a men’s team, and the 2018 Winter Olympics will see the debut of the first ever women’s bobsled team from Jamaica. There’s just one catch: they no longer have a coach.
As the CBC reports (and darn those clever Canucks for coming up with the catchiest possible headline, one that references Cool Runnings), Jamaican bobsled team coach Sandra Kiriasis quit suddenly, less than a week before the women compete in Pyeongchang. The reasons for her departure aren’t entirely clear; the CBC article makes reference to the fact that the German “was asked to change her role,” and it doesn’t sound like she wanted to quit.
Making things even more awkward, Kiriasis actually owns the bobsleigh in which the Jamaican women are going to make their runs next week.
"“I have never known such disappointment in this sport, in my life. The athletes have told me they don’t understand why this has happened as they have no problem with me and we have a good relationship.”"
Even though Jamaica isn’t expected to contend for a medal, the loss of Kiriasis could be bigger than one might think. She’s a two-time Olympic medalist, winning gold in 2006 and silver in 2002, and a multi-time world champion, so she brought the kind of expertise that can’t easily be replaced.
The history of the Jamaican bobsled team dates back to the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary and the four-man team that was immortalized in film. The country has qualified a sled in every Olympics since then except for 2006 and 2010, but the pairing of Jazmine Fenlator-Victorian and Carrie Russell is the first one to qualify from Jamaica in any women’s winter sport.
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