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Publication date : Saturday, February 13th 2010 - 10 005 views
Kerr, the Other ''Cool Runnings'' Hero
"Hey Sanka... you dead ???" It is impossible not to recall the cult line from the film Rasta Rockett (original title "Cool Runnings", released in 1993 by... Walt Disney) on coming across the list of athletes at the Vancouver Winter Olympics, from 12 to 28 February. 2,632 participants, 91 different nationalities and... one Jamaican!
Errol Kerr, who last Friday evening at 6.50pm marked his entry into BC Stadium by brandishing the flag of his country of origin at the opening ceremony, is indeed the sole representative of the yardie team. "When people hear about a Jamaican skier, they expect to see dreads falling out from behind my helmet and a cloud of smoke following me down the mountain", jokes Kerr, proud to represent his island at the Games. "It's more than my country, it's my blood, my DNA", he sums up.
Much to the displeasure of Derice, Junior, Yul and Sanka, the famous quartet of "Rasta Rockett" who set off to take on the best at the 1988 Games in Calgary, in western Canada, Kerr (23), a former member of the US team, will not be contorting himself in a bobsleigh. On the snow of Cypress Mountain, where all the snowboard and freestyle ski events will take place, it is on a pair of skis that the Brooklyn (New York) native, raised in California by an American mother and a Jamaican father, will launch himself on Sunday 21 February at 12.48pm (9.48pm French time) for the skicross quarter-finals, a spectacular discipline that appeared in Turin in 2006 and the counterpart of boardercross in snowboarding (an elbow-to-elbow race between four downhillers).
A film soon?
Currently 31st in the 2010 World Cup standings, this hefty athlete (1.75 m for 95 kg!), equally skilled at BMX and motocross, will try to take advantage of the unpredictable nature of his sport to make it into the semi-final or even the final (events scheduled for the same day).
According to the Jamaican Observer, negotiations are even said to be under way for a film on Kerr's life to see the light of day. "I am working hard to find a deal (...), there are two or three potential candidates", Olivia Grange, the sports minister, confided on Friday in the columns of the Jamaican daily. "Discussions with ESPN are well advanced and there are other possibilities that I cannot mention for the moment, but I am very optimistic (...)", the minister added, at a reception held at the same time as the opening ceremony, in the presence in particular of Stephen Hallihan, the Canadian High Commissioner in Jamaica.
In the event of a podium finish, or even an Olympic gold, Kerr could, why not, become, in the shadow of the untouchable Usain Bolt, locomotive (more like a bullet train) of the Jamaican sprint team at the Beijing 2008 Summer Games, the other "Rasta Rockett" of Jamaica... In both senses!
Report written by François Xavier-Rougeot
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