Diver who grew up in Calgary now chases Olympic bobsled dream
Global News
He grew up in Calgary diving competitively. He represented Jamaica at both the 2023 and 2024 world aquatics championships in a bid to qualify for the Olympic Games in Paris.
Yohan Eskrick-Parkinson couldn’t have imagined when his high school Halloween costume was a Jamaican bobsledder that he’d eventually intersect with that world of sleds and ice.
He grew up in Calgary diving competitively. He represented Jamaica at both the 2023 and 2024 world aquatics championships in a bid to qualify for the Olympic Games in Paris.
He didn’t fulfil that dream, but another one has arrived quickly. At almost six-foot-two, Eskrick-Parkinson was unusually tall for a diver, but that frame gives him the potential power to push a bobsled.
After attending testing and push camps provincially and nationally in the summer and fall, Eskrick-Parkinson will slide down a track for the first time in his life Thursday in Whistler, B.C., with the goal of doing that for Canada at an Olympic Games.
“I’m just looking forward to it because it’s another sport that’s fast and it’s aggressive on the body and that’s what diving is like with flips and everything,” said the 24-year-old.
“I’ve done all the levels of sport, except for the Olympics. And I thought, ‘You know what? If there’s a chance to go perform at that level or higher, again, I might as well take it and contribute.’ And that’s a huge opportunity that I can’t deny.”
Eskrick-Parkinson’s father Desmond emigrated from Jamaica to Canada in the 1990s. His mother Melissa lived in Calgary during the 1988 Olympic Games. The underdog Jamaican bobsled team there inspired the 1993 movie Cool Runnings.
Eskrick-Parkinson knew the story well while attending Calgary’s National Sport School at WinSport, which was the site of the ’88 sliding track.
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