This movie was loosely based on a true story. Specifically there was a 4-man bobsled team from Jamaica that competed in the Calgary Olympics, and they crashed the sled. Everything else in the movie was fiction, written by a lazy screenwriter with no research. They deserved better than this farce. I rated this as a 5 of 10, because the writers could have at least tried to tell the true story! Too bad, they didn't even care.
The 1988 Calgary Olympics were the last of the "open era" of Olympic bobsledding. There were 41 sleds in the 2-man race, and 26 sleds in the 4-man race. The problem was that medals were decided by hundredths of a second and every 1400 pound sled under 2-3 gforce in the banked corners damaged the smooth ice. The 10 or so medal contending sleds all faced different ice conditions over the 4 runs of the 2 day race. Complaints from the elite teams finally forced the FIBT to introduce seeding, like ski racing had, and stronger entry standards (a minimum number of World Cup races in order to compete at the Olympics). True to the Olympic ideals the "youth" of the World could still compete, but the top teams in World Cup would go down first in each heat.
At the Calgary Olympics the medals were won by East Germans, Swiss (Gold in 4-man) and the (Latvian) Soviet Union, grabbing Gold with their skinny 2-man sled, in their second Olympics in bobsledding. The Jamaican driver, Dudley Stokes with Michael White finished the 2-man race in 30th. They were good athletes, but lacked in driving experience. The crash in the 4-man race put them in last, but heroes forever! Eight years later they were ready, at the1994 Olympics the Jamaicans finished 14th in 4-man, ahead of the USA team!
In Calgary there were bobsledders from Taiwan, Australia, Calgary residents from New Zealand, Prince Albert of Monaco, Dutchmen from the Netherlands Antillies, 2 pairs from Toronto representing Portugal, four middle aged sailers from the US Virgin Islands, four brothers from Mexico, coached by their dad and more. While the media focuses on the medal contenders, the Olympic Creed refers to the "taking part" that is what the Olympics are about. I never heard any racist comments at the time (as suggested in the movie), the only complaint was that the less serious teams interferred with the race for the medals that the top teams had spent years training for. Again, this was resolved by the seeding process used in subsequent Olympics.
The Jamaicans were a media sensation, and while training and racing their 2-man bobsled, during the first week of the 1988 Olympics, they fundraised to buy a 4-man sled, which they were able to do. So the first time Dudley drove a 4-man was during Olympic training in the second week of the Olympics. A 4-man is actually easier to drive than a 2-man since the extra weight makes it more stable, on the other hand it is slower react and correct so most people learn to drive with the 2-man sleds.
Driving a Bobsled: The runner blades are rounded but don't have edges like a skate, you don't want too much control, the fast way down is to float down the run like a log flume. A driver can only get enough grip to steer when the sled is in under the g-forces of the banked corners, there is no control in the straightaways. The driver steers the sled off the corner aiming for the next corner.
A new driver has to gain experience (usually by crashing) how much and how quickly to control the height of the sled entering a corner, then let it run free, and fast. At the end of the corner a driver cranks his head to look for the exit, his hands squeeze the left or right steering ropes to guide the sled off the turn and into the next curve or straightaway. It is a frigid form of ballet, violent and breathtaking, always one tap of the wall away from disaster.
When a sled enters a long turn, such as the Kreisel, it has time to misbehave, it wants to climb too high, then drop down too low, then climb back up at the end, that is know as "the wave". A big wave is beyond recovery, while the sled is climbing at the end of the curve, the banked corner becomes a straightaway and the g-forces that are holding you up on the ice wall disappear. This results, at best, in a hard collision with the exit wall, at worst the sled rolls over on it's side, especially the heavy 4-man sleds.
If the driver doesn't control the sled height in the split second that it gets onto the Kreisel he knows he is going to have to "crank" the steering rope hard at the end of the corner to overcome the wave and get down off the corner by "taking the hit", losing time, but saving the sled. If that doesn't get the sled off the high exit, the sled rolls onto it's side, all the way to the bottom of the bobsled run. The driver and the unappreciative crew are left to duck their heads, hold on to the hand holds and reconsider their career choices. It is a bonding experience, builds or destroys the team spirit. Surprisingly, the crew usually supports the driver, it is a part of the sport, an accepted risk. There are crewmen who have crashed and crewmen who have not yet done so. The relief of getting your first crash over with and relatively intact outweighs living in fear of the unknown. Actually, it is worth doing at least once, no one can hear you scream, and you find out what burning fibreglass smells like. Surviving a crash makes you appreciate life and you have a story to tell at the bar, chicks dig scars! A driver who makes a regular habit of flipping sleds, eventually runs out of crew, and can turn his misfortunes into a coaching career.
The Deadly Game: To be serious, the sport used to be more dangerous, with sleds disappearing over the top of the curves, and into trees. Since the 1960's we now have lips, like guardrails, at the top of the corners. An early version of the lip cost the life of one of the best drivers in the sport. The two greatest Italian drivers of the mid 20th Century were Eugenio Monti and Sergio Zardini. Zardini moved to Lake Placid in the 1960's. That old Lake Placid track had a left-right combination called zig-zag. On a bitter cold 1966 morning there were several crashes going from zig into zag by veterans of the Bobrun. Even Sergio Zardini's 4-man sled couldn't make it through, his sled wouldn't get off zig, the sled flipped into zag headfirst into the lip, which was built as a row of wood crossways boards instead of boards layed in the direction of sled travel. A photo of the moment shows that his helmet was torn loose on impact. His death was not a price that drivers should have been expected to pay to do this sport. Canadian Bob Storey was the brakeman and survived that ride and went on to drive in 2 Olympics and become President of the Canadian Bobsleigh Association. Safety gear and track design were eventually improved.
Learning the art of 4-man: Dudley Stokes was in his first week of driving a 4-man, he drove two other 4-man sleds that week in Olympic training before buying the freshly painted race sled, a "crash course" in learning 4-man. The crew was also new to the sled and the push start, then the choreography involved in loading 4 large men into a moving sled.
The Crash: When the Jamaican sled came out of curve 8 and rode the long straight towards the 270 degree left hand circle of the Kreisel corner, the driver was a bit late catching the sled. Watching video later I noticed that he had made the same mistake with the 2-man sled, but got away with it on the lighter sled. The 4-man climbed too high into the Kreisel, dipped in the middle, the momentum of the wave sent the sled up at the exit of the curve. They ran out of curve, lost all the centrifugal force that was holding them onto the banking, and rolled over onto the left side of their sled. They could only duck their heads and hold onto the handles tight through the violent ride through curves 10, 11, 12, 13 and the finish turn.
Movie Version: In the movie, it portrays a loose nut causing the crash, that is another bit of lazy fiction created by the script writer (I have no respect for someone making up lies instead of doing his homework, when writing a story about real people!) The sled crashed due to driver error, Dudley Stokes was a talented athlete, he was a helicopter pilot in the Jamaican Defence Force, he went on to compete for years successfully.
- Brian Grant, 1988 US Virgin Islands coach and driver of the yellow sled in Cool Runnings (only seen in background shots). Also movie "sled wrangler" arranging rental, purchase and painting of all the sleds, also privided artwork and set design photos and props.
