Times of the Islands Summer 2022

Walkin May2017_Layout 1 5/28/17 5:45 PM Page 1
On February 27, the Jamaicans made their first run
in the four-man sled, and it went badly, partly due to a
technical malfunction of the sled. The second run didn’t
go much better, and they landed dead last on the first day
of competition. But the team still had two more runs to go
the following day and a chance to improve.
Fate was not about to relent. The next morning,
Tal woke up with a temperature of 102ºF (39ºC), having
caught the Olympic flu. Aching all over, he walked over to
inspect the condition of the track, slipped on the ice, and
fractured his collarbone. He shook it off and made his
way to the top of the course where he and his teammates
got the sled ready. First aiders iced Tal’s broken bone
and numbed the pain with a spray. Noticeably absent was
Coach Howard. With literally minutes to go before the
start, George came over with bad news: Coach Howard
had called from the airport to say he was heading back
to New York for work. That hit Tal hard, but he pulled it
together.
Once again, Tal looked down the steep, glistening
track before him and briefly meditated to block out the
sickness, the pain, the rattling of bells, and the coach
gone. He pulled down his goggles, wrapped his fingers
around the handlebar extending from the sled, and
focused as Devon counted “One, two, three, GO!” The
team got off to an excellent start that would turn out to
be the seventh fastest at the 1988 Olympics.
The sled sped down the course faster than they had
ever gone before, so fast that it put Tal’s steering further
and further behind. By the time the sled reached the
midway point at the eighth so-called “Kreisel” turn that
wound around nearly 360 degrees, Tal began missing the
pressure points. The sled went too far up the bank of the
ninth curve and began “porpoising,” or bouncing up and
down. He lost control and the sled flipped over, crashing
into the wall at 85 miles (136 km) an hour.
Tal’s head hit hard against the ice and kept hitting.
His life flashed before his eyes where he vividly saw his
wife, mother, father, and his brother sitting in the back of
the sled. He despaired at the grief his mother would feel
if the crash killed both her sons. After 10 seconds, Tal’s
brain snapped into survival mode, and he went through
the crash drill of trying to protect his head by tucking
under the lip of the cowl in front. But the protruding helmet
“snout’ prevented him, which also made it harder for
the guys behind him to get their heads out of the way.
In the effort to cut expenses, the team made due with
motorbike racing helmets instead of proper bobsled helmets,
and suffered for it.
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Times of the Islands Summer 2022 37