Should Cool Runnings 2 be created after Jamaica’s historic bobsled campaign at this year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing, fans can expect a Kiwi presence in the film.
Jamaica will field three bobsled teams in Beijing – including the return of the four-man team after a 24-year hiatus - thanks in part to New Zealand-born Jo Brown.
Brown supports the small Caribbean nation’s Olympians as a physio and performance manager. She told 1News she couldn’t contain herself when she heard the qualification news.
“It was middle of the night for me,” she recalled.
“We had the team announcement and stuff and I just wanted to jump through the screen and hug everyone.”
Brown said jokes aside, Cool Runnings – the 1993 film loosely based on the Jamaican bobsleigh team at the 1988 Winter Olympics – does have a place in the team’s culture.
“Everybody always asks about the lucky egg and one of the guys does have a lucky egg,” she said.
Brown's journey to the team is a story in itself.
Born and raised in Opotiki on the east coast, she moved to Australia and eventually volunteered for the 2018 Commonwealth Games where she was allocated to Jamaica.
She went on to work with the likes of sprinting great Shelley-Ann Fraser-Pryce before she was finally approached by the bobsleigh team.
“They’re like, ‘how do you know how to deal with bruises like this?’ and I’m like, 'rugby in New Zealand,'" she said.
“I always want to go where I can make the biggest difference in the world.”
Covid complicated matters, forcing athletes and staff into remote working and coming up with unique training schemes such as their infamous Mini Cooper workout in Peterborough in 2020.
“There was definitely advice to be training and do what you can but the Mini Cooper was a bit of a stunt,” Brown admitted.
Unfortunately, the promotional work is needed though with the team still crowdfunding for their campaign weeks out from the Games.
Brown said the team deserves to be there in their best shape.
“The world knows about bobsleigh because of the Jamaican team,” she said.
“That legacy has been with us on tour for months… When the impossible has been done before, why can’t we do it again?”
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