All Aboard The Night Train!

Oh, this is sweet . . ..

The four-man bobsled team United States 1, whose sled is known as the "Night Train," made history today by speeding to an Olympic gold medal in Vancouver - the first American gold medal in the four-man bobsled event since 1948. Steven Holcomb was the driver, supported by Steve Mesler, Curt Tomasevicz and Justin Olsen. They set the pace in the first of four runs and never looked back. Their final margin of time on the fastest sled track ever built was .38 of a second.

To give you an idea of how significant this is, American bobsledders had long been considered more of a novelty than the Jamaican bobsled team.

The Night Train crew beat a German sled piloted by the esteemed Andre Lange, a friend of Holcomb's. Now the Americans can take their places among great Olympic bobsledders such as Lange, Peter Kirby of Canada, Eugenio Monti of Italy, Jean Wicki of Switzerland, and the Latvian bobsledder Janis Kipurs.

I remember Janis Kipurs, a member of the Soviet team in the 1980s, very well, largely because of his name - pronounced "YON-is KIP-ers." I like saying it over and over - "YON-is KIP-ers." "YON-is KIP-ers." "YON-is KIP-ers." :-D

Of course, Steven Holcomb, Steve Mesler, Curt Tomasevicz and Justin Olsen are four more names worth repeating. :-)