Thursday we had our first day of official training for the monobob and two-man event. I was glad to get back into sport competition where the clock at the finish line tells the truth and the rest is storytelling, and to step away from sport administration where more and more I see storytelling posing as truth.

Nostalgia came over me as I helped move the sleds, checked the start order, felt the crunch of the ice beneath my feet, heard the roar of the sleds as they careened around the 360+ degree turn, with the pushers’ bodies folded like a Chinese ham sandwich under the force of 4Gs (not mobile service, gravitational pull).

As our COVID liaison officer and chief medical officer, the meticulous Dr Wayne Palmer was to observe in astonishment, most of a bobsleigh run is spent pasted onto almost vertical curves by gravitational forces.

One cannot get a sense of the awe it inspires and its majesty by watching the sport on television. We, who have been around the sport for a while, also recognise that we were viewing the new standard for bobsleigh tracks around the world. Its official name is the Xiaohaituo Bobsleigh, Skeleton and Luge Track. Most people refer to it as the Yanqing National Sliding Center. Athletes simply call it the Sleeping Dragon.

The Sleeping Dragon is an artificial ice surface track with a total length of 1.9 kilometres and a racing track length of 1,615 metres. The track has a unique three uphill sections, with a net vertical drop of 127 metres over 16 curves. It also features an impressive corner of 360+ degrees, or Kreisel, modelled off the first Kreisel turn constructed in Königsee, Germany in 1968 and reproduced in Calgary, Canada, for the 1988 Games.

That Kreisel, by the way, is the infamous turn in which the 1988 Jamaica bobsleigh team crashed on the third run of the four-man competition. This Kreisel adds a twist, or more specifically, an up and down, that is to say, for the first 180 degrees the sleds are actually going uphill and the second 180 degrees falls off steeply downhill and to the right. The track is safe, not technically challenging, and achieves modest top speeds of around 130km/h, but is quite unfamiliar in its elements. Unlike any other track in the world, the Sleeping Dragon is entirely covered if not enclosed. The starting area feels more like a hotel lobby than the rough outdoor concrete surfaces one might expect, and one can walk comfortably along its entire length without fear of the elements, sometimes beside the track, and sometimes on top of the track. The Chinese have outdone themselves here.

Beautiful as it is, the dragon must be slain. Our first job on this quest was to select the pusher for Shanwayne Stephens in the two-man. As in all selection events my preference is data. I do not involve myself in athlete selection, but the principle of letting the data speak is well-established. Our options were Ashley Watson and Nimroy Turgott.

Ashley took us successfully through the North American Cup race circuit and to qualification. He is solid and reliable. Nimroy is our national push champion, but was not able to travel to the US where five of our eight qualification races were held. He did join the team in Europe although we did not race and showed very well in push training at Bath University in the UK.

I recruited Nimroy from MVP and put him forward for a Solidarity Scholarship which he was able to secure. He is from August Town and racing in the games would mean a lot to and for him and his community. All that said, if he were to race in the Olympics, he would have to beat a very good pusher in Ashley Watson. The gospel according to St Omega is all we would be reading. Nimroy pushed 5.17 seconds in his heat, then came back up to the top to cheer on Ashley in his heat. Ashley pushed 5.25 seconds. Sled velocity and downtime pointed to one conclusion. Jamaica’s two-man bobsleigh team for the 2022 Beijing Olympic Winter Games will be Shawayne Stephens, pilot, and Nimroy Turgott, brakeman. I saw two warriors genuinely compliment each other after and return to a shared vision.

And the athletes shall lead them. While standing in the ‘hotel lobby’ at the top of the track I saw a great commotion bubbling up from corner 1. It was the security detail for His Serene Highness Prince Albert II, Sovereign Prince of Monaco. I soon saw Prince Albert appear in the company of Ivo Ferriani, president of the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation (IBSF). President Ferriani beckoned to me from across the ‘lobby’. The three of us, stood and spoke for a few minutes on private matters and agreed to reconnect at a more convenient time. What was notable is that 48 hours before I was locked in a CAS appeal with the IBSF. President Ferriani had told me earlier that what is important is not that we agree on everything but that we respect each other. We bumped fists and returned to a shared vision, just as Nimroy and Ashley did.

As I walked away, I cried again for my beloved country. If I had opposed an idea let alone take to arbitration many sport leaders in Jamaica, they would ‘carry belly’ for me and for my progeny generations to come. We will not be able to advance in sport if we do not grow up.