Jamaica’s bobsleigh teams that contested at the Winter Olympics in Beijing, China didn’t finish in favourable positions, but the experience landed them the number one spot in the members’ hearts. Both the four-man and the two-man team didn’t qualify for the top 20.

The four-man team of Shanwayne Stephens, Rolando Reid, Matthew Wekpe and Ashley Watson met on September 18, 2021, three months before qualifying for the Olympics and becoming the first Jamaica team to do so in 24 years.

The team clocked 1:00.80 seconds in heat one, 1:01.39 seconds in heat two, and then 1:01.23 seconds in heat three.

In an exclusive interview with the Jamaica Observer, three of the men recalled the road to that point being filled with uncertainty and tough decisions.

Stephens, pilot for both teams, started in 2017. He ended up in bobsleigh as a result of being a member of the Royal Air Force in the United Kingdom, where they used ice sports as training for personal development.

“The team manager of the Air Force team just happened to know the team manager of the Jamaica team. He passed my details over, and they invited me to come to trials. I’ve been with the team ever since. It was a smooth transition. When I first met everybody, everybody was really welcoming,” he stated.

Reid related to the Sunday Observer that in 2019, a friend told him he wanted to take on the bobsleigh journey and wanted him to be a part of it.

Reid, 29, said he was just looking to train him for the local try-outs. Eventually, he competed and came out as the top recruit.

At the time, he was a teacher of economics at the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) level.

“Due to the nature of work, I was unable to travel with the team to Lake Placid in New York to train. All I was doing was training out here on my own while the team was away. The first season in 2019/2020 I only got about 10 days on ice,” he said.

“Fast forward to the 2020/2021 season, the same thing happened. I entered the North American Cup and due to lack of experience and a lack of equipment, I wasn’t able to qualify for the race. I was honestly frustrated. I was training for two years but not really getting anything. It’s not like track and field where you show up at a track meet and run and go back home.”

Watson was reading for a master’s degree in physiotherapy when the team met, and training took a toll on that. He also invested thousands of dollars in a home gym and put his business on pause.

“A lot of sacrifices were done. I stopped all my income and studied while training. That was pretty stressful… being away from friends and family for quite a few months of the year just to quality. Lots of training went into this,” he told the Sunday Observer.

“It was a lot of weight and sprint training, and pushing anything I could find; cars, sleds, trolleys and that kinda prepared me for the sport. My job is to push the sled as fast as possible, so I need the leg speed as well as the power because the sleds are pretty heavy.”

Brakeman Nimroy Turgott and Stephens make up the two-man team that dropped out after heat three with a time of 1:01.54.

Turgott, 29, was screaming at his television in 2008, cheering on Jamaican athletes at the Beijing, China Olympics. When he eventually decided to participate in bobsled in 2017, he told the Sunday Observer that many people told him to stop daydreaming.

“A teacher in high school first told me to stop doing sports. And then a lot of persons don’t even know much about bobsleigh, and when they hear about it, they think it’s just a joke, or that we are just there for a show. But we actually put in the work and qualified. I couldn’t be more proud.”

Turgott, a father, said he doesn’t care so much about the results, and is happy his name has been added to a 34-year legacy.

Jamaica bobsled team made its debut in 1988.

“It’s an honour. It’s a proud moment. We stepped forward and did what we did this year. Knowing that I am a part of that is an amazing feeling. My story is just getting started,” Turgott added.

Meanwhile, Stephens told the Sunday Observer that despite not finishing where they wanted to, the experience was fantastic.

“Everybody just wanted us to do well. It wasn’t the result that we wanted, but it almost was the result that was to be expected. With the equipment that we were using at the time, just for us to even qualify for the games was a big ask for the team, and we managed to pull it off. We managed to pull it off, and then we went out there and we did everything we could’ve done to give the best performance.”

It’s the same for Reid who walked away from his job as a teacher to focus on the sport.

“It’s a sport that doesn’t really pay. I have my bills to pay, and I became a father in January 2021. I had a decision to make. I was faced with ‘Do I stay in the position I was in terms of teaching, paying the bills and staying with my daughter? Or do I pursue this thing I have been pursuing for two years?’ I couldn’t afford to give up at that point,” he recalled, noting that with family support, he journeyed to Lake Placid in September 2021 and met the other members of the team. That was the first time he trained on ice.

The Olympians said there were various moments throughout the Olympics that made the experience unforgettable.

For Stephens, one of such was when the team stepped out during the opening ceremony.

“That sort of solidified all the hard work that we managed to put in. That was like our first reward,” he said.

Another golden moment for him was when the team stepped out on the line with, “all four of us in our Jamaica gear, having the flag. We all looked at each other and said, ‘Alright, come on boys. Let’s give this our best shot.’ We literally ran off the top of the hill like fire and ice as we would say, and gave it the best that we could,” he added, excitedly.

Reid told the Sunday Observer that participating in the event, with top tier production and resources was positively overwhelming.

“The hospitality that the Chinese gave us was remarkable and the facility was remarkable as well. I can’t picture any other nation building such a fantastic and phenomenal facility. It’s a state-of-the-art type of thing. We were going up against teams that have been together for four, eight, 12 years and going to their second and third Olympics. I am pleased. We were just having fun and putting on the best show we could. We left everything on the track.”

Turgott said the experience has left him eager for the 2026 staging in Italy.

“It just added to the fuel that I have; I am a competitor. Knowing we achieved what we achieved, it’s just moving forward from now and getting to the next game. I already started thinking about training plans and stuff like that,” he said, laughing.

Watson added: “Making the Olympics was like a dream come true. Especially for Jamaica. It’s very close to my heart because I’m born in the UK, but my father was born and bred in Jamaica. I got Jamaican blood in me, so being able to make Jamaica, my heritage, my family proud was a great honour. In the pandemic with everyone down, I feel like we made people happy and have something to look forward to. It’s amazing and it was surreal. It still doesn’t feel real now.”