Chris Stokes (bobsledder)

Chris Stokes
Full name	Nelson Christian Stokes
nation	Jamaica
birthday	December 25, 1964
place of birth	Saint Andrew ,  Jamaica
size	189 cm
Weight	90 kg
Career
discipline	Two, four
position	Pusher
society	Washington State Cougars
status	resigned

Nelson Christian "Chris" Stokes (born December 25, 1964 in Saint Andrew ) is a former Jamaican bobsleigh driver who was a member of the first Jamaican bobsleigh team.

biography

Chris Stokes, who won several high school titles at Bronx Community College and the University of Idaho in the United States , trained to compete in the 1988 Summer Olympics . His brother Dudley Stokes was able to qualify as a pilot of the first Jamaican bobsleigh team for the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary . For this reason, Chris also traveled to Calgary to support his brother with the Jamaican premiere at the Winter Olympics. Shortly before the four-man race , Chris Stokes was brought into the team, although he had never sat in a bob before. This was because Caswell Allen , who was supposed to be a pusher, was enjoying the Calgary nightlife more than focusing on the competition. The team finished 24th out of 26th places after the first run. After a fall in the last of the four races, however, the race was over for the four who had won a lot of sympathy. Despite their fall, the crew pushed their bobsleigh to the finish and embodied the motto: "Being there is everything".

From then on, Chris Stokes was an integral part of Jamaican bobsleigh. He took part with his brother at the 1992 Winter Olympics , where two Jamaican teams competed in the two-man bobsleigh race for the first time . The brothers came in 36th behind the bobsled "Jamaica 2" by Devon Harris and Richard McIntosh . In the four-man bobsleigh , the team finished 25th out of 31 places.

At the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer , Chris only competed in the four-man bobsleigh . Together with his brother, Wayne Thomas and Winston Watts , the crew finished 14th out of 30 participating bobsleigh teams.

In 1995, Stokes became president of the Jamaican Bobsleigh Federation, but since he competed again at the Nagano Games in 1998 as an athlete, he resigned in December 1997 from office. When he last competed in the Olympics, Stokes only started in the four-man bobsleigh and finished in 21st place.

Trivia

In 1993 Disney produced a successful feature film entitled Cool Runnings about participating in the 1988 Olympics, which has a fictional story about the first appearance of a Jamaican bobsleigh team at the Olympic Games.

Web links

• Chris Stokes in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Legacy. Retrieved April 8, 2020 . 
2. ↑ Clemens Blaim: Olympia Special - Inspirational Personalities: The Legend of "Cool Runnings". Retrieved April 7, 2020 .