By NAN STAFF WRITER
News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Tues. Feb. 15, 2022: The Caribbean region has no medals on the 2022 Winter Olympics Table so far, but the participating athletes are making history anyway.
Jamaica’s Jazmine Fenlator-Victorian, who became the first woman to represent the island in the Women’s Monobob competition at a Winter Olympics, finished 19th overall with a time of 4:28.56 after 4 heats on Monday.
Benjamin Alexander, who was the first Jamaican alpine skier at the Winter Olympics, finished 46th out of 89 competitors, with a combined time of 3:18.52 from 2 runs on Monday in one of many events disrupted by blizzard conditions.
Alexander, the 38-year-old former DJ who moved from the UK to Wyoming in order to improve his skiing, finished ahead of eight skiers who did not finish their second run, and 35 others who scored a DNF on their first run.
“Frickin’ hell, that was hard,” he said out loud in comments caught on camera after he crossed the finish line.
Haiti’s Richardson Viano, 19, who has made history as the only athlete of Haiti at the Winter Olympics, did not finish during the alpine skiing men’s giant slalom at the National Alpine Skiing Centre in Yanqing District in Beijing.
Viano, who was Haiti’s flag-bearer at the opening ceremony, made it through the first intermediary checkpoint on his first run in the giant slalom before getting his DNF. The 19-year-old was adopted from an orphanage on the island nation by an Italian couple who live in Briançon, France.
There he learned to ski, and later in life was contacted by the Haitian Ski Federation about representing them. He got his Haitian passport in 2019, and has since said that his aim includes going back to the orphanage he came from.
“I am proud to show them my success. I really want to go back there to see my roots and especially to give dreams to young people through sport and its values,” he said.
Puerto Rico’s William Flaherty, who has beaten cancer twice, completed both runs in the men’s giant slalom at Beijing 2022, four years after his brother, Charles, competed at Pyeongchang 2018 to become Puerto Rico’s first Winter Olympian for two decades.
Flaherty, 17, finished 40th in the men’s giant slalom on Sunday.
Katie Tannenbaum, representing the USVI competing in the skeleton, finished last but it has not upset her whatsoever. She overcome long odds to just to get to the Beijing Games and made it to the Olympics only after Sweden and France declined to send athletes to the race.
Puerto Rico’s Kelle Delka finished behind her at 24th.
Meanwhile, in the two-man bobsleigh competition, Jamaican pilot Shanwayne Stephens, and Nimroy Turgott, completed their first 3 heats of the Men’s Two-Man Bobsleigh with a combined time of 3:04.12 and at 30th or last. They did not advance to Heat 4.
Trinidad & Tobago’s two-man bobsleigh, men’s team, which is also returning to the Winter Olympics after 20 years, with pilot Axel Brown, and his pusher Andre Marcano, finished ahead of Jamaica in the 28th position in a time of 3:02.56 in Heat 3 but also did not advance to Heat 4.
The four-man official bobsleigh training begins tomorrow with Jamaica also competing.
