A BUCKS New University student is balancing his studies with training to realise his Olympic dream - as a member of the Jamaican bobsleigh team.

Shanwayne Stephens, 29, who is studying BA (Hons) Organisational Capability, hopes to be part of the four-man team from the Caribbean nation competing in the event at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

Just like the Jamaican team in the 1993 film Cool Runnings, Shanwayne aims to taste Olympic glory by careering down narrow, twisting, banked, iced tracks in a gravity-powered sleigh - but first needs to qualify.

Shanwayne, who moved to the UK when he was 11 and serves in the RAF Regiment as a Lance Corporal, is a lead bobsleigh driver and trains in Peterborough, where he lives, as well as Bath.

Training in lockdown has included swapping posh training facilities for homemade weights and bars, as well as video training, and even resistance training pushing a Mini Cooper belonging to Shanwayne’s fiancé.

Another member of the bobsleigh team, Nimroy Turgott, has been training and living with Shanwayne. Nimroy lives in Jamaica but has had to stay in Britain since the start of the pandemic.

Shanwayne said: “I know in the movie in Cool Runnings they didn’t have the correct equipment so I feel like we’re living up to their spirit and improvising as best as we can.

“Now I just need to keep up with my university work as I am likely to be very busy next year training.”

Wayne Palmer, Shanwayne’s course lecturer at Bucks New University, said: “Shanwayne is a great student, who attacks his studies with the same vigour that he puts in to his training for the Olympics. He is about to start his final year and we look forward to a good finish.”