Olympics-Brazil bobsled optimistic fifth time's a charm in Beijing

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - They don’t have snow but they have athletic prowess and they have dreams and the Brazilian bobsled team are optimistic it will be fifth time lucky in their quest for a medal at the next Winter Olympics.

Team captain Edson Bindilatti competed in the bobsled event at the Winter Olympics in 2002, 2006, 2014 and 2018 and he thinks Brazil are getting closer and closer to glory.

"We have high-level athletes here in Brazil, athletes with the same capability as any others in the world,” Bindilatti told Reuters. "We are very strong.”

The team which includes two former triple jumpers have worked hard to improve their Achilles' heel - the push start - with the help of a second-hand apparatus on the edge of a running track just outside Sao Paulo.

Bindilatti sees the parallels with "Cool Runnings," the 1993 film about the Jamaican bobsled team, and his teammates agree.

One of them, Luis Henrique Goncalves, is keen to get to Beijing in 2022 and even keener to see snow for the first time.

"To get there (Olympics) and see the snow and the ice, I've never done that in my life, and as a member of the Brazilian national team for bobsled,” said Goncalves. “It would be a huge satisfaction for me."

(Reporting by Pablo Garcia; writing by Andrew Downie; editing by Jonathan Oatis)