“This is ridiculous. This is not how it was meant to be. I thought, how am I here?”  The Jamaican bobsleigh story is the most unlikely in the history of sport. Thirty-seven years on, the driver, Dudley ‘Tal’ Stokes, reflects under the shade of swaying palm trees on that death-defying, life-changing journey.

Born to missionaries, Dudley ‘Tal’ Stokes was Jamaican by parentage, a Turk and Caicos native by geography, and a British citizen born in a colony months before Jamaica’s independence. 

It was a challenging start. No electricity and running water meant survival was uncertain. “Death was easy in that place and time,” says Tal.

With very few options, at 18, Tal saw his future in the military. “Money was tight. Universities were expensive, so I immediately took myself off the family books by joining the army.”  

He graduated from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in England before returning home to fly helicopters for the Jamaica Defence Force. Meanwhile, George Fitch and William Maloney, Americans living in Jamaica, devised the crazy plan for a Jamaican bobsleigh team inspired by the annual Jamaican push-carting derby. 

Unsurprisingly, Fitch and Maloney struggled to find people to try out for a death-defying sport: hurtling down icy slopes at lightning speed inside a fibreglass tube in -15 °C temperatures. 

Eventually, they approached Colonel Ken Barnes, father of England football legend John Barnes, to recruit military personnel. Setting the wheels or, in this case, skates of this extraordinary story in motion. Tal was not an entirely willing character in this story, “I didn’t have a choice. I had no idea what bobsleighing was. I once saw a short clip in England and told myself, these people are crazy.”

Only a couple of months before the start of the 1988 Games, the team travelled to Calgary, where they experienced bobsleighing for the first time. 

The Canadian snow replaced the Caribbean sand, the wheels replaced smooth-edge steel tubes, and the Olympic dream replaced reality, which became ever starker the higher they went up the mountain. “We would start at a lower level, and as you master that, you go up higher and higher until you reach the top, and then everything changes.”

While their equipment was poor, Tal’s competitive spirit was developing. “We had bad equipment and always had bad starts, but I learned to fight for every hundredth of a second.”

They were motivated by the possibility of becoming the first Jamaicans to compete at the Winter Olympics. 

On December 31st, they learned they had qualified. “That moment made it feel real. We were going to the Olympics!”

They began with optimism despite only months of practice. 

At the opening ceremony, Tal, the highest-ranking military officer, led the group’s lap of the stadium. “Everybody in Jamaica dreams of putting on the national colours. So, for me, it was a realisation of a dream,” smiles Tal. 

The team introduced themselves to the world with woolly green hats and yellow puffy coats. “The roar hits you. I cried out a little bit during the ceremony,” In stark contrast to other nations, the Jamaican team was humorously small. Six men walked the snowy lap, two of whom were American coaches in their distinctive cowboy hats. 

In Cool Runnings, the competitors and crowd were portrayed as unwelcoming to the Jamaican team, emphasising the film’s underdog narrative. In reality, there was euphoria. They became the focus of the 1988 Winter Olympics. 

“It was surreal. We hadn’t done anything yet, but suddenly we were stars.” The Jamaican team’s reception was incomparable to any other nation.  “There was cheering and cheering and cheering throughout the night, and this roar was when Jamaica was announced. With a fond smile, he says, “It was so incredible, the proudest moment of my life.”

The euphoria was not to last. One of Tal’s’ teammates was injured in their final training runs, ruling him out of the Olympics and putting the three remaining men’s Olympic hopes on ice.

Thankfully, fate stepped in. Tal’s brother, Chris, a keen sportsman studying in Idaho, was there to watch his brother. Quickly found himself in the Olympic Village, officially accredited to compete with only three days of training. 

In their first heat, the push bar used to get the team off to a fast start collapsed. Somehow, Tal managed to get into the sledge. The slow start and confusion pushed Jamaica back to 25th place. “The first heat was chaotic, an absolute circus. We couldn’t get in, couldn’t sit down.”

That night, the team regrouped, analysed what went wrong, and planned for the next day. Little did they know that the next day would change their lives forever.

“I didn’t get much sleep. I was getting sick. I woke up with a temperature over 100 degrees.” Still, Tal headed to the slopes to walk the track, his pre-race ritual. This was his first mistake: “I had the wrong shoes on, and I had this terrible fever. My head was spinning, I lost my balance, and I fell, breaking my collarbone.”

Tal wouldn’t let anything get in the way of the race. With a stomach full of painkillers, Tal was warming up near the start line when more unwelcome news came. The coach Howard Silo, a constant presence, guiding the team and standing by at every race and start, had abruptly left, calling from the airport, claiming a need to return to work. 

“It was a bitter blow. But we were 2 minutes away from starting by this time, and I had to pull myself together.”

Set! Tal cried, followed by a shout of, UP! to set them off on their sprint along the ice. With the crowd roaring them on, Tal jumped in the bobsleigh first, and his teammates followed. It was Jamaican bobsleigh time.

Dudley Stokes, Michael White, Devon Harris, and Chris Stokes became the hottest things on ice as they set the fastest start time they had ever recorded.

The crowd’s roar quickly transitioned into the roar of the bobsleigh hurtling down the ice, travelling over 120km/h, with their heads bobbing from side to side at each turn.

Tal described the inside of the bobsleigh as tight as if his teammates were sitting on top of him. “We were going very fast. Faster than I had ever gone. I got later and later on the steering. It became all anticipation.”

The Jamaican team was finally showcasing its bobsleighing ability. After successfully navigating the first eight turns, the team headed to the infamous turn nine, the Kreisel. The long left-hand turn, with very steep banking, became glaringly obvious to Tal in seconds. 

“Oh, and he’s over. Oh, dear me! That’s terrible! That’s a bad crash!” shrieked the BBC commentator, Tonna Gubba. The sledge had veered upward, losing control and falling off the curve. 

This critical misstep sealed the team’s fate. “The first thought in my head was that, oh no, not in the Olympic Games.”

During the crash, the tightly packed crew left no room to manoeuvre, meaning Tal couldn’t get into the bobsleigh. Chaos erupted inside the sledge, with everyone pressed against one another. Tal found himself pinned between the sleigh and the track, moving at speed. “This is ridiculous. This is not how it was meant to be,” he thought. “I then relaxed and reviewed the whole situation.”

Tal spent the next 18 seconds banging and scraping his head on the ice, mentally planning the future of Jamaican bobsleigh. Where were they going to go from here? How were they going to get a new coach? How were they going to get improved equipment?

The sledge eventually stopped after skidding through five corners on its side. The crowd watched in horrified silence, fearful for the team’s lives. The crew climbed out and waved to the crowd in the face of failure and embarrassment.

“I didn’t expect that after we crashed, people would be so pleased that we tried.” Smirks Tal.

Unlike in the Cool Runnings scene, the team didn’t carry the sleigh. Instead, they walked over the line together. Embracing the crowd’s cheers. They wouldn’t be Olympic champions, but they were the people’s champions. 

“We came back to a hero’s welcome.” Chuckles Tal. “I was sure that I would probably be court-martialed.”

Their story created Jamaican bobsleigh fever, which revived the teams’ prospects with an influx of sponsorship money. “We went from comedians to competitors.”

Tal’s perseverance in the face of challenge and failure took him to three more Winter Olympics. In 1994, he finished 14th out of 30 competitors, his highest-ever finish.

“Anything worth doing is a struggle. Struggle leads to suffering, and with that suffering, you still must find a way to keep trying. That’s how you achieve.”

By daring to dream, Tal paved the way for future generations. Since his retirement in 1998, a Jamaican bobsleigh team has competed in four of the last six Winter Games. His brother and former teammate, Chris Stokes, described it best: “Many have achieved more, but none have come as far.”