Way Cool Runnings: Former UConn Track Star Medals in Pyeongchang

Former UConn track star Phylicia George is
competing in the Winter Olympics as a member
of the Canadian bobsled team.

By Bob Phillips

PYEONCHANG, SOUTH KOREA–Of all Winter Olympic Sports, perhaps none offer as many colorful stories than bobsled (Tanya Harding excepting).

First, there was a group of Jamaican sprinters determined to participate in the 1988 Calgary Games—as bobsledders! That effort was made into the popular 1993 film, Cool Runnings. Then, in 1992, football (and track) star Herschel Walker represented the United States in the Albertville (France) Games, participating as a pusher/brakesman for the U.S. Boblsed Team that finished seventh.

Flash forward to the 2018 Winter Games, and Phylicia George, a former track & field star at UConn, has won a bronze medal as part of the bobsled team for her native Canada. George joined team driver Kaillie Humphries on the podium to accept the team’s medal.

The Canadian team finished their set of four runs with a time of 3:33.89, according the NBC’s Olympics Results Page. Germany's Mariama Jamanka and Lisa Buckwitz took the gold with a time of in 3:22.45, while the USA's Elena Meyers Taylor and Lauren Gibbs won the silver with 3:22.52.

A 2010 UConn graduate, George competed with the Husky 100-meter relay team that set an ECAC outdoor championship record with a time of 44.43 seconds. She also set the 100-meter hurdle record at UConn at the 2010 Big East championships (you remember when UConn was in The Big East, right?) with a time of 13.39. Her time of 8.33 in the 60-meter hurdles was then the fastest in program history.

Indeed, this was not the first Olympics experience for the multi-talented George, who competed for Canada in the 2012 Summer Olympics in London and in the 2016 Games in Rio. She placed sixth in the 100-meter hurdles in London, and eighth in the same event in Rio. With her appearance in Pyeongchang, she becomes the first black Canadian woman to compete in the Summer and Winter Olympic Games.

he 30-year-old Scarborough, Ont., native lists Muhammad Ali as her idol.

—with staff reports