WATCHING Errol Kerr glide down those treacherous and icy slopes in Vancouver on Sunday, was déjà vu for me.

For a fleeting moment, I had a throwback to 1988 and to another Canadian city, Calgary. It was there that a marvel of modern Jamaican sport was unleashed on the world.

Against all reasonable possibilities and expectations, the island nation fielded a team to a Winter Olympic Games for the first time. Back then, we entered a bobsled team.

And as the spectacle unfolded, the world stood by in awe at the sheer novelty of it. That a country with year-round tropical weather could muster the magnitude of heart to venture onto ice where it had no tradition, knocked them dead.

Indecisive at first, the four-man team of Dudley Stokes, Devon Harris, Michael White and Samuel Clayton quickly got the feel of their new sled and the nuances of the Calgary course. At breakneck speed, they flew down the winding lane and into the history books.

At that time, our bobsledders were well aware they were entering virgin territory, and what followed must have taken them by surprise.

For they were soon the darlings of the Games, even as they wore the tag of the underdog. And when the fairytale ride had ended, someone saw it fit to immortalise them in film in the 1993 Walt Disney Pictures portrayal, Cool Runnings.

To prove that their Calgary adventure was no fluke, Jamaica’s bobsledders have made repeat appearances at Winter Games.

After finishing poorly in the 1992 Games in France, the Jamaicans qualified again for the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, where the four-man sled team stunned critics by finishing in 14th place, ahead of the USA, Russia, France and Italy.

And in 2000, their remarkable exploits continued when they won gold at the World Push Bobsled Championships.

Unfortunately, they failed at qualifying for the ongoing Vancouver edition.

Still, there was Jamaican representation. And credit to our versatility, we had a skier this time around in Kerr, a one-man team. Born and raised in California, he chose the Jamaican colours over his native America in tribute to his late Jamaican-born father.

And though he finished ninth overall in the men’s ski cross event, he was a champion in my eyes and Jamaica owes him a great debt of gratitude.

Without him, we would have had no presence in Vancouver where the Games are being broadcast to a worldwide audience of nearly three billion.

It was indeed heart-warming to see the gold, green and black of the Jamaica flag on the various television networks covering the event — priceless advertisement of the Jamaican brand to target markets for the island’s bread and butter, tourism.

And those North Americans and Europeans itching to escape the prevailing chills of their homelands could well warm to the idea of destination Jamaica now that the island’s image has been refreshed at the Winter Games, and in such a poignant way.

That apart, Kerr’s boldness on the ice fundamentally brings into sharp focus the irrepressible nature of the Jamaican people. It’s our larger-than-life attitude that drives us to push limits and boundaries, which decisively gives us our edge and enviable record in sport.

For without question, our domination of track athletics in particular can be traced to that unique spirit that distinguishes us from all other peoples of the world.

It’s unfortunate, however, that we have done poorly to channel this quality in other aspect of Jamaican life, for we are still hungry for effective and pragmatic governance, social mobility, economic development and justice and rights for all.

Whatever anyone thinks, Jamaica will continue to be world-beaters in sports, but unless we can engineer a sensible policy to harness its financial potential for the benefit of all, we would have effectively allowed a real and valuable asset to waste away.

Nearly two years after the escapades of our athletes at the Beijing Olympics and an equally splendid World Championships 12 months later in Berlin, I am yet to see any tangible and meaningful returns for the country from an economic standpoint.

That our talented sports people and cultural exponents is Jamaica’s single greatest asset, is true. Yet, I am not convinced that enough is being done to nurture this invaluable human resource.

And that brings us to the much-talked about and well overdue National Sports Policy being spearheaded by government. We hear it is in its final draft and should be before the Houses of Parliament before long. We desperately await it.

This policy, I understand, will be the framework that will seek to address sport in the broadest of sense. It will embrace, in part, budgets and expenditures, infrastructural and talent development, sport as an economical tool and so on and so forth.

I can only hope that any policy aimed at the far-reaching development of sport must be well thought out, multi-dimensional and entrenched in the base principles of protecting — first and foremost — the long-term interests of the athletes, and of course, Jamaica.

With or without this National Sports Policy, government and corporate Jamaica ought to develop the predisposition to invest significantly more in our young people and sports. Failure to do so could be costly for the country.