By james art 
Lake Placid, New York – No snow in Jamaica. Or Malta. Or Ghana. In part of Thailand and Malaysia, there are perhaps dust reported rarely. And no one thinks about Spain, Colombia, Israel, Brazil and Taiwan as superpowers for winter sports.
They all slide anyway.
These 10 nations – with a combined five Olympic medals of winter between them over the years, all won by Spain – have been part of a 38 -nations record -breaking turnout in the last two weeks in the World Bobs and Skeleton Championship in Lake Placid, a sign that sports are still growing. Some of the athletes from these nations are expected, even without a sliding path in their homeland, not within thousands of kilometers from these countries, in some cases, will compete at the Olympics next winter.
“I am really happy that they are more nations here and this sport is growing,” says Adana Johnson, a 17-year-old pilot of women from Jamaica after she finished Monobob on Lake Placid last week. “I think one of the reasons is the Olympics, they allow only three sleds from the bigger nations to compete, and this species allows the smaller nations to collide in the ranking.”
It is true that there are spots set aside at the Nations Olympics that develop teams to compete on the biggest stage in sports. That is why there are sliders of American Samoa, Bermuda, Greece, India, Ireland, Nigeria, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago, Tonga and the Virgin Islands over the years.
Skeletal athlete Jonathan Jau wants to add Malaysia to this list. He is a former handball player from Australia who slides to Malaysia – the country he was born and his father’s home – largely because of a hereditary program created in Southeast Asia for the promotion of winter sports after the 2018 Pichechhang Games.
YAW finished 29th in the World Cup last week. Of 29 sledges, ie. He did not worry and showed some progress; For example, he defeated the Olympic and 2026. Reliable Aquasi Frimpon from Ghana at his last start of the event.
“We have some good ambassadors for our sport,” Yau said. “And, you know, in sports, sometimes you get arrogance and flirtation. I want to show people that you can be humble. You can just put your head down and work hard and still achieve good results and be a good role model for children. “
YAW has some success and there is a young girl in Placid Lake, who has proof of it. She owns the first medal he had ever won in the North America Cup competition and wore it at the opening ceremony last week. He gave it to her to plant seed, he hopes.
“She actually started a skeleton in Lake Placid because of this medal and because she met me,” Jau said. “It brings me to tears. If I can do this for a child, then on a platform like the Olympics or the World Cup, I hope I will be able to do a lot more. “
Shannon Galea – who works for the Canadian Olympic Committee – is now a skeleton slider representing Malta through the heritage of his father and grandparents. She trains when she can now in Lake Placid and there are athletes from Malta and other places who strive for guidance on how they can try to become Olympians.
Like YAW, it was the last in the Women’s World World Competition.
“The last place is not fun,” Galea said. “But I’m lucky. Many field athletes are supportive. “
She was a star athlete in numerous sports growing. Softball was probably her best game; She was a pitcher that was throwing at high speeds, and now she was sliding with a head on the mountains with even faster speeds – she escaped into Lake Placid last week about 72 miles / h – to chase this Olympic hope.
“I played five sports for Varsiti,” Galea said. “This is not a sport for Varsiti. This is, “Go out there and be psycho.”
Sliding sports have some traditional forces. Germany has long been the most successful nation in the world, whether sports are Bobslen, Skeleton or Luge. USA – with Kaysha Love in Monobob and the mixed skeleton team of Austin Florian and Mytique Ro – was a lonely nation that won more than one gold in Week 1 at the World Championships. Austria, Italy, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Latvia and Canada are also among the nations that are traditionally strong.
China comes, enhanced by huge investments in its Beijing games programs in 2022. Brazil had a slider – Nicole Rosha Silweira – won two medals for the World Cup for women this season and finished fourth in the World Cup. Ukraine almost received its first skeletal medal at the World Cup this year, with Vladlyzlov Harashkevich finishing fourth.
“We show what can happen if you believe it,” Herashkevich said. “And if you fight.”
This phenomenon of dreamers of sliding sports may have really come out as a novelty when Jamaica sent a Bobslen team from the 1988 Calgary Olympics, which was turned into the 1993 movie “Cool Runnings.” The film is largely invented, but it is still the most recognizable part of Jamaica’s history.
Johnson was a gymnast when she was hired. She didn’t know what Cool Runnings was. And now she lives her own version of the story, after he finally saw the movie.
“They made us watch it,” Johnson said. “I had no idea what it was.”
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