8801080934
DETROIT FREE PRESS
880221
Sunday, February 21, 1988
STATE EDITION
1E
MITCH ALBOM
Copyright (c) 1988, Detroit Free Press
TRIVIAL PURSUIT
CRAZY 8 SLEDDERS VIE FOR CARIBBEAN CUP
CALGARY, Alberta -- We are watching the sleds come down the hill. Our
feet are in mud. The sun is warm.
"Who's winning?" someone asks.
"Who cares?" comes our answer.
We are not interested in winners in this Olympic bobsled competition. We
know the winners must be East German or Russian, because they are winning
everything else.
Nor are we interested in the U.S. team, because every time we turn around,
someone on the U.S. team is suing someone else on the U.S. team. Besides, they
are in 23d place.
But look. Here comes a sled. It is bumping the walls. Oops. Up the side.
Then back in. Scrape, scrape. It is the sled from Mexico.
Mexico?
"Is there anyone you would like to interview?" asks the Olympic Committee
person in charge of the fenced-in media area.
We look at the Mexicans, who are embracing now, having survived their run.
"Them," we say.
The real story of this Olympic bobsled race -- and maybe the whole
Olympics -- is not the gold, silver or bronze medal. The real story is the
"Caribbean Cup," a silver plate purchased three days ago at a Calgary shop by
a member of the Virgin Islands team.
"Wait," you say. "There's no snow in the Virgin Islands."
Exactly.
The Caribbean Cup goes to the top finisher among eight countries that have
no snow, no track and few people. It is the perfect award for these XV Winter
Olympics, where the trivial -- Eddie Edwards, curling, the guy who crashed
into downhill racer Pam Fletcher -- has replaced the important.
Which is why we are here, at the bottom of the run. We know where the news
is. We will be there when the bad bad bobbers come bob-bob-bobbing along.
And here come the Mexicans. They are bad. Very bad. Let's talk to them.
"How was the run?" we ask Roberto Tames Perrera.
"Bumpy," he says.
Did we tell you about the Mexican team? Four brothers, Roberto, Adrian,
Jorge and Jose? Drove to Calgary in a Chrysler and a Chevy? With their mother
and father? Fifty-three-hour trip. They slept in shifts.
"Did you have any trouble at the border?" we ask.
"Yeah, a lot," says Roberto. "They kept looking at our passports and
saying, 'You're here for what?' "
It is not important that they never saw the sleds they would use until
they got here. It is not important that they are renting a sled from a
Canadian photographer. It is not important that they once flipped over and
went down on their heads. That stuff might count in the real Olympics.
We are at the other Olympics now. What counts is the trivial. This is what
counts: All four brothers work in the same Mexican restaurant in Dallas, La
Cantina Laredo -- they are waiters -- and the worksheet in the kitchen where
their hours are usually posted reads for Jose, Jorge, Roberto and Adrian this
week: "OLYMPICS."
"Are the other waiters rooting for you?"
"Yes," says Adrian, "they're making a lot better tips without the four of
us around."
Oh, wait a minute. Another sled. Bang. Crash. Scrape, scrape. It is a
nasty run. It is . . . Jamaica.
Jamaica?
"You wish to speak with them?" asks the Olympic Committee woman.
We watch them get out, shaking their heads. They look as if they have just
come off Space Mountain in Disneyland.
"Definitely," we say.
Let us tell you about the Jamaicans, while we wait for them to come over.
Until last summer, there was no bobsled team in Jamaica. Then an American
named George Fitch decided to put up $60,000 to fund a squad. He placed
posters in schools and army bases around the country, which read, and we
paraphrase: "Here is your chance to represent Jamaica in the Winter Olympics.
Come for a tryout next Wednesday. Previous cold weather experience not
necessary."
Fitch ran the hopefuls -- 35, we are told -- through a series of drills. He
chose the fittest of the fit. It is not important that none had ever seen a
bobsled up close, or that several had never seen snow.
What is important is this: Sweatshirts. The Jamaican team members help fray
expenses by selling "Jamaican Bobsleigh" sweatshirts wherever they go. They
carry bags of them. Want an autograph? How about a sweatshirt? They even sold
them to reporters following a press conference.
"How was your run?" someone asks Dudley Stokes of the two- man team.
"It was not so good," he says.
"How are the sweatshirts selling?"
"Very good."
Crash. Bump. Skid. Hey, look who's here! The Virgin Islands team.
"You want to. . . . " begins the woman in the media area.
"Absolutely," we say.
Here come John Reeve and John Foster. Age 50. Not together. Separately. Two
of the oldest athletes (and we use that term loosely) in the Olympics. They
call themselves "The 100-Year-Old Sled." Very catchy.
"Did you have a good run?" we ask.
"The track is melting a little," says Foster. "When we tried to rock the
sled back and forth, it stuck."
Reeve and Foster, like many of the other warm-weather teams, began their
Olympic quest pretty recently, as Olympic quests go. They are former wealthy
sailors who sailed from Great Britain 20 years ago, just for the heck of it,
wound up in the Virgin Islands, and decided to stick around.
It is not important that they do not fill their speed suits in the same
places as the young guys. Not important that their fastest start ever was 6.15
seconds -- which is a full second slower than those of the good racers -- in
an event that is decided by hundredths of a second.
What is important is this: Age. When they are at the top of the track,
people keep asking them what team they coach.
"How did the Caribbean Cup come about?" we ask Reeve, who thought the
thing up.
"Well, I went to a silver shop and had a plate engraved. We're going to
give it out Sunday or Monday. There are eight countries involved, all with no
snow, no track, and a relatively small population."
"Which eight?"
"Jamaica, Virgin Islands, Portugal, Netherlands-Antilles, Australia,
Portugal, New Zealand and Bulgaria."
"Wait," we say, "don't they get snow in Bulgaria?"
"Well, yes, I guess," says Reeve. "But they were so keen on the idea, we
decided to let them in anyhow."
Why not? Anyone can enter. Got a good story? You're in. What is important
now in these Winter Olympics is what was unimportant before. So we stand at
the bottom of the track, in the mud, with warm breezes blowing, waiting,
perhaps, for those crazy Netherland-Antilles guys, or maybe Prince Albert of
Monaco, who is racing as well.
"Anyone interested in interviewing Kipours and Kozlov?" asks the media
woman, of the two Russians who are leading the bobsled competition.
"Who?" we say.
XV WINTER GAMES;OLYMPICS;CARIBBEAN;BOBSLED