CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy (AP):
Yesterday would have been a fantastic day for fishing in Jamaica. The weather was just about perfect with bright sunshine, forecasters calling for temperatures in the low-to-mid 80s, somewhat calm breezes.
Under normal circumstances, Shane Pitter probably would have been on the water.
He was on frozen water instead at the Milan Cortina Games.
Jamaica’s next chapter of bobsled history is being written, and at the forefront of the story is the 26-year-old Pitter — someone whose “real job” is being a fisherman and someone who has gained quite a bit of notoriety for making videos about his fishing exploits. Along the way, he and Jamaica somehow discovered that he has got tons of promise as a bobsled pilot as well.
“We’ve got a lot of young athletes on the team and coming on the team,” Pitter said. “It’s still a development stage. Even though we are young athletes, we are the best athletes Jamaica ever had in bobsled.”
These Olympics are the ninth with Jamaica competing in the bobsled events, a stretch that started — as probably most everyone on the planet knows — at Calgary in 1988 with the team that inspired the Cool Runnings movie. It still rings true now: think Jamaica bobsled, think Cool Runnings.
The Jamaicans don’t mind. Perhaps more accurately, they understand.
“It’s OK for them coming up to me and asking me about Cool Runnings and the history, and so forth,” brakeman Junior Harris said.
“It is nice to interact with the fans, you know. And I’m going to give them every minute I have, when I have time, apart from doing the sport. I’m going to always be there to talk to them.”
Jamaica has never finished better than 14th in an Olympic bobsled race, and that may not change in Cortina.
Olympic medals are still the dream — but are a long way off. And funding is a massive issue as has always been the case: Mica Moore, a one-time bobsledder for Britain, said she spent more than 40,000 pounds (US$54,500) to fund her Olympic season, simply because there is no other funding available.
“It’s a very expensive sport, and that’s me doing the season on a cheap budget,” Moore said. “We’ve got the heart and we’ve got the drive, and as long as you’ve got that, you make things happen.”
She sees the potential in Pitter.
“All I do know about Shane is he just loves driving bobsleds,” Moore said.
“Like, if we have a day off, he’s like, ‘I just want to get back on the ice.’ I’m, like, ‘OK, Shane, let’s just have a day. We need a day.’ He is invested in it. And as long as the programme can keep supporting him, he’s going to do great.”
Pitter may be the one who can find a way to someday make a realistic push towards Jamaica bobsledding being celebrated for something other than the movie. He picked up 10 medals this season on the North American Cup circuit, with eight of them gold on what has, basically, become the team’s de facto home track in Lake Placid, New York.
“He might be the best young pilot we’ve had,” Jamaica bobsled federation president Chris Stokes said earlier this year.
There is still a certain novelty to Jamaicans at the Winter Olympics. They remain a feel-good story, and rightly so. Snoop Dogg has spent some time with the team during the games, partially in his forward-facing role as an Olympic ambassador for NBC and Team USA, partially when the cameras weren’t running. He offered support and encouragement, and the Jamaicans were blown away that he took the time to share a few extra words with them.
“Junior cooked for Snoop Dogg and Snoop loved his cooking,” Pitter said. “He ate the jerk chicken straight down to the bone.”
If Snoop and Pitter cross paths again anytime soon, fish might be on the menu. Pitter plans to resume his fishing career once the sliding season ends. He’ll continue making the fishing videos, too, hoping the Olympic experience leads to a bigger following.
No, Pitter has never been ice fishing. But he does see some parallels between his job and his sport. Pitter enjoys spear fishing, which he says gives him a ton of upper-body strength that helps him have a stronger push at the start of the bobsled track.
And when the weather turns cool next fall, bobsled — and a run at the 2030 Olympics — will again be on his mind.
“For us, this is real life,” Pitter said. “The movie is somewhat fiction, but this is real, real life. We are the real team.”
