WHISTLER, Canada (AFP) - It’s a long way from sun-kissed May Pen, Clarendon Parish, Jamaica, to the icy surrounds of the Olympic Games’ Whistler Sliding Centre high up in the mountains above Vancouver.

But Lascelles Brown’s odyssey is second to nobody.

That’s because bobsledder Brown is out to become the first Jamaican to win a gold medal in the history of the Winter Olympics.

The original 1988 Games incarnation of Jamaica’s ‘Cool Runnings’ bobsledders failed to come close to medal glory - though they did finish a creditable 14th in Lillehammer eight years later.

But Brown’s record bears comparison with anybody’s, since he garnered a two-man silver at Turin four years ago, weeks after obtaining a Canadian passport to become the first Jamaican-born athlete to stand on a Winter Games podium.

A year earlier Brown had already gone one better and won gold at the world championships with veteran Pierre Lueders in Calgary and is renowned as being one of the top brakemen in the sport.

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