Inspired by Cool Runnings: “Those guys really motivate me”
Pitter didn’t grow up dreaming of becoming a bobsleigh pilot. In fact, he couldn’t have even told you what a bobsleigh was, let alone how you’d go about driving one, when he posted his first fishing vlog six years ago.
“I couldn’t even imagine it,” he told Olympics.com, recalling the time was approached at a track meet by one of his now teammates: “He came up to me and my friend and asked if we wanted to join bobsleigh.”
“I didn’t know what bobsleigh was at the time. So I joined, and [then] I realized what Bobsled was really about,” he adds. “Then, I found out they got a movie called Cool Runnings.”
And so, like many sliders from non-traditional winter sports nations around the world, Pitter himself got inspired by the hit film that fictitiously retells the Jamaican bobsleigh team’s debut at the Olympic Winter Games Calgary 1988.
“Those guys really motivate me,” confessed the pilot following in their footsteps. “Even when the sled crashed, they took the sled up on their shoulders and brought it across the finish line. That inspired me to do better at these Games.”
But before he could author an equally compelling sequel at Milano Cortina 2026, he had to make the team, learn how to drive the sled and qualify to compete at the Olympics – a journey that began with tryouts for the national team.
“I came first in the push competition out of all the new recruits, so then I got the opportunity to come to Lake Placid, started my training, and started off as a pilot.”
“I went from the lowest start,” recounted Pitter. “My coach told me to let the sled get up on the curve and I did the opposite, so I crashed like four times in three runs.”
Undeterred and wanting to improve the mood of his unimpressed coach, he got to work on mastering this newfound craft.
“The second day, I went with more knowledge. I started watching POV’s (point-of-view videos) [and] watched the sled go down the track.”
It’s a technique he uses to this day: “That is how I take my time getting better and better, every day.”
