America likes to invent sports and force them into the Olympics. It makes us happy to see our country win more medals, and see the French fall down a lot. The 2010 Winter Olympics will feature skier cross, which is a hybrid of cross-country skiing, and obstacle course, and awesomeness. You guessed it: it got its start at the X Games. But what nobody could have guessed, unless they went to the movies in the early 90s, is that Jamaica is planning on fielding a team.

(Oh, like you could’ve resisted running this picture.)

Errol Kerr and Gregg Samuels, the entire Jamaican ski team, have a couple of disadvantages. Their names are not nearly as memorable as Sanka Coffie or Yul Brenner, and they come from a country without snow. They’re getting around this handicap by training in the US, as well as with “dry land exercises.” And if I were any good at photoshop, you’re damn right I’d post a picture of two men with 2×4s strapped to their feet getting pulled by a team of dogs down a city sidewalk. (Feel the rhythm, feel the rhyme, get on up, it’s push-cart time - after the jump.)

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Mike Florio of PRO FOOTBALL TALK reports that Bryant Gumbel is bidding adieu to the NFL Network.

The lead play-by-play announcer during the network’s first two years of existence is apparently hanging up the mike. In a released statement, Gumbel explains that he “thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity” to call games on NFLN, but added that he & the network “agreed that we’d all be better served going in different directions.”

Creative differences? Or a cute way to say you were canned? Either way, Bryant is bidding adieu. But it might have been his earlier comments about Gene Upshaw that could have paved the way for his eventual exit.

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