Olympic Cinderellas: Devon Harris and Chris Stokes of the famous Jamaica bobsleigh team on following your dreams

The team, consisting of Devon Harris, Dudley Stokes, Michael White, and last-minute replacement Chris Stokes, debuted at the 1988 Winter Games in Calgary. They started their training in a tropical environment only five months before the Winter Games. Their first appearance in Canada remains one of the most iconic moments in Olympic history. The quartet from the Caribbean island came nowhere near the podium and even crashed on the third run, unable to officially finish. The world fell in love with them with the tale of how the Jamaicans put together a bobsleigh team for Calgary inspiring the hit film, Cool Runnings.

Chris Stokes, who stepped on the ice at the last minute to replace an injured teammate admits that it was a little strange to him how popular the team was even after the crash.

"Much later I came to understand what Jamaican bobsleigh meant to the people at this time and continues to mean, it's the finest part of the Olympic Movement. When I speak now about Jamaica bobsleigh, I speak about the Jamaica bobsleigh movement, which is an idea. It's not time on the ice. It's an idea that regardless of where you're from or your circumstances or who your parents were, you can move yourself into other places, you can make more of yourself. You can do more than you thought, more than people around you expect," Stokes tells Olympics.com.

Chris Stokes.

Despite the results in Calgary and at other Games, they are Olympic and humble legends.

"In my wildest imagination, I never thought that I would ever be called an Olympic legend. So thank you for that," Stoke’s teammate Devon Harris tells Olympics.com.

"Calgary was and still is a very special experience. It was a crazy endeavour, but it's been life-changing in so many ways, not just because I went to the Olympics and a movie was made. I think it's virtually impossible to take on a feat like that, and it doesn't cause you to grow as a person. So I'm grateful for that experience."

These days Devon Harris is a motivational speaker. Many years ago, he was doing a talk, when someone asked him: "At what point did you and your teammates think that you would never make it to the Olympics?" It is a thought that never crossed their minds.

"Surely there were people who thought we were jokers and it was impossible. Certainly, it was very difficult, but we never felt that we wouldn't be able to achieve it," says Harris.

Devon’s childhood wasn't easy. He was raised in the slums of Kingston, yet graduated from the prestigious Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in England and served as an officer in the Jamaica Defence Force. He calls himself a guy who has always strived to achieve something spectacular. Speaking of his motivation to become an Olympian Harris says Olympians are inspired by other Olympians. When Devon was 15 years old, he started training track running seriously. Before the 1980 Olympics in Moscow he watched a TV series called, The Route to Moscow, which sparked his Olympic ambitions.

"They highlighted athletes from different disciplines around the world and talking about their sporting lives, but also their lives outside of sports," says Harris. "And it was remarkable to me how average and ordinary they were. But they had these extraordinary dreams and an equally extraordinary desire to pursue those dreams. And it dawned on me then that within reason, anyone could become an Olympian if you dare to dream that big and then to match those dreams with the work and the discipline and the drive to make it happen. So that was when this idea of me becoming an Olympian, not a winter Olympian, was born. And then in 1987 this crazy opportunity fell in my lap, so to speak. I grabbed it with both hands. And so here we are".

Harris has never dreamt of having a Hollywood film made about a part of his life and admits that it’s flattering, but he thinks their story really is the thing that Hollywood movies are made of. Another film was made based on a Cinderella story from the 1988 Calgary Games. British plasterer Michael Edwards, better known as Eddie "The Eagle", finished last in ski jumping but stole the hearts of the fans around the globe.

"Eddie is pretty cool. I knew his story, but I met him 20 years later. There was the 25th anniversary of the Olympics in Calgary and we were invited back. I remember telling my teammates afterwards: 'Do you know that Eddie the Eagle was even more popular than our team?'," says Harris with a laugh. "That's the impression I got like everybody was: 'Eddie!' And I'm like, 'hey, I'm here too!' But yeah, it was fun hanging out with him. The ski jump has a zip line now, Eddie was jumping, and they invited me to jump with him. And although I'm scared of heights and speed, I said yes. That was not the brightest of ideas, but I survived."

Speaking of the current Jamaican bobsleigh team, Devon Harris admits they have much better athletes than he was.

"I think we still have tremendous potential. I really believe the dreams of winning an Olympic medal that we had are realistic in the long run for Jamaica. We just need to continue to build on all the years of knowledge and experience that we are kind of garnering right now to bring it all together to get that winning team."

Devon Harris.

Devon Harris and his teammates inspired millions of fans many years ago. He has since been helping people to find inspiration as a motivational speaker. He says the problem usually comes down to not knowing exactly what you want to do.

"When I was thinking about leaving the army, the question was, 'what would I do?' I had this one thing that I was doing, and that had given my life direction coming from the slums. But what was the next step? And it took me a while. A good book, the Bible, says seek and ye shall find. It's not 'hey, go, look this one time.' No, you have to keep looking, asking yourself, questioning, searching earnestly for that answer. And I think once you find that answer, it will resonate in your heart. I'm not suggesting that once you figure it out, it becomes easy. The journey becomes easier because you have a direction, but there's work to be done."