Matthew Wekpe: From rugby player to Jamaican bobsleigh Olympian in 17 months

Jamaican bobsleigh brakeman Matthew Wekpe’s journey to the Winter Olympics is worthy of its own movie.

Just 17 months before Beijing 2022, the UK-based rugby player, who represented Jamaica in both 15s and 7s, had never stepped on ice before.

But the pandemic split Jamaica's four-man bobsleigh team up, with the Caribbean-based team members unable to join their UK colleagues for training.

An urgent call from pilot Shanwayne Stephens for UK-based Jamaican rugby players to try out for the four-man sled went out, and Wekpe answered... eventually.

“I didn't initially put my hand up straight away,” Wekpe admitted in an interview with Olympics.com.

“But after giving it a bit more thought, and because I wasn't doing anything else I said, “Let's give it a go."

Wekpe was an immediate hit at the try out, was brought into the team, and his new Winter Olympic dream began.

”Three weeks later, which is around 13 weeks before the Olympics, I stepped into a bobsleigh for the first time. It was also the first time I’d stepped on ice!”

The first time the four-man crew competed together was on 18 September 2021, just months before the Winter Olympics. But a lack of preparation time was far from the only challenge for Stephens, Wekpe and their pushers Ashley Watson and Rolando Reid.

Midway through the qualification event on the world’s fastest track in Whistler, the 30-year-old sled that was lent to them the Canadian team broke

“I'll never forget going around the last curve, at which point you're going 97, 98 miles an hour and pulling five-and-a-half G (Force),” Wekpe continued.

“The seat in the back actually started cracking, so I had to squeeze in order to keep it together, and took my butt off the chair. Once we completed the corner I was