Trinidad & Tobago’s Men’s Bobsled team is aiming to qualify for the Beijing Winter Olympics in February 2022 and end a 20-year hiatus from the Games.

The team consisting of Summer Olympic hurdler Mikel Thomas, sprinter Andre Marcano, Axel Brown, and brothers Shomari and Shakeel Brown has been competing on the North American Cup tour and will know whether or not they’ve qualified for the Olympics on January 16.

Their best seven out of eight races in recent months will count towards Olympic qualification.

Right now, the team is comfortably ahead of countries like Italy, Croatia, Israel, and Jamaica and Brown says the team’s chances look good as long as they can stay ahead while also pointing out that they are relatively inexperienced.

“We are currently comfortably ahead of them, but this is elite sport and anything could happen. I understand that a lot of people were not aware T&T had a bobsleigh team, but it only happened realistically three months before the start of the season so this has only existed in a tangible form since July,” Brown told the Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.

Brown, born to a Trinidadian mother and British father, has also represented Great Britain in the past and says he’s overwhelmed by the response of the Trinidadian public to the team.

“It feels great. I am really excited over not only what we have been able to do on the ice, but also the reception that it’s had. It’s been incredible. To be doing what I am doing still, but having such a warm welcome and such an excited kind of fan base is honestly so validating and lovely…it is exciting that now all of a sudden, the TT population is kind of embracing us and what we are able to do. That’s again, so nice,” he said.

Brown hopes that this team can inspire future generations of Trinidadian bobsledders.

“Going forward into the next four years…hopefully, there are other TT teams that are inspired by what we are doing, but I think we certainly have the athletic pool from which to choose great athletes from but also the four that we’ve got at the moment are doing incredibly well and I am really excited to see what they can do,” Brown added.