PyeongChang2018 – Meet Sandra Kiriasis; the woman behind ‘Cool Runnings 2’

 

We all remember the heart-warming tale of the male Jamaican bobsleigh team qualifying for the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics.

Disney turned their epic story into a cult film, and now it seems that history is repeating itself.

Thirty years after that incredible achievement, Jamaica’s women’s bobsled team have emulated the men’s in qualifying for the Pyeongchang Winter games this year, and Sandra Kiriasis is the women to help take them to possible victory.

Sandra is a German retired bobsledder who has competed from 2000 to 2014.  At the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City she won silver in the two-woman event together with teammate Ulrike Holzner. She also competed in the bobsleigh events at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, where Sandra won gold in the two-woman event with teammate Anja Schneiderheinze. She finished fourth in the two-woman event at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

Sandra also won eight medals at the FIBT World Championships with five golds (Two-woman: 2005, 2007, 2008; Mixed team: 2007, 2008, 2009) and two silvers (Two-woman: 2003, 2004). She won the overall two-woman Bobsleigh World Cup in 2003-4, 2004–5, 2005–6, 2006-7, 2007-8, 2008-9, 2009–10, 2010–11 and won a record 43 World Cup races in total.

Sandra retired from the sport after the 2014 Winter Olympics and in July 2014 joined basketball team Nürnberger BC as a fitness coach.  In 2017 she was appointed as driving coach for the Jamaican women’s bobsleigh team ahead of the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, helping them to qualify for the Olympics for the first time.

Pilot Jazmine Fenlator-Victorian, brakewoman Carrie Russell and Audra Segree are aiming to make history, and make right the sad ending the men’s team back in 1988 in Calgary.  They’ll be targeting a top 10 finish at the Winter Olympics with their German coach Sandra Kiriasis, which gets underway on February 9.