updated 5:00 p.m. ET Feb. 19, 2006

CESANA, Italy - Believe it, mon! A former Jamaican bobsledder is now an Olympic medalist.

Lascelles Brown, who pushed sleds for Jamaica from 1999 until 2004, helped Canada win a silver medal in two-man bobsledding Sunday night — only about a month after he obtained citizenship and earned the right to represent his new homeland in the Turin Games.

Brown is the second black bobsled medalist in Winter Olympic history; another brakeman, Vonetta Flowers of the United States, won a gold medal in the women’s event four years ago in Salt Lake City and begins her defense of that victory Monday night at the Olympic track with driver Jean Prahm.

“I want to thank Canada for embracing me as a citizen so I can sit here and talk to you,” Brown said. “I want to thank all my Jamaican friends, my teammates, who talked to me, were behind me and motivated me in order to do what I did today.”

Brown and driver Pierre Lueders finished the two-day, four-run competition in 3 minutes, 43.59 seconds. They were 0.21 seconds behind German winners Andre Lange and Kevin Kuske, and 0.14 seconds ahead of bronze medalists Martin Annen and Beat Hefti of Switzerland.

The top U.S. sled, Todd Hays and Pavle Jovanovic, finished seventh.

Brown’s job is simple: He’s the man at the back of the sled when the run begins, sprinting and pushing as fast as he can and building speed for the driver. And Canada-1 benefited from his work; Brown’s start times were either first or second in all four runs.

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“I think he’s the best athlete on the Canadian team and I know how proud he is to represent this country,” Lueders said.

The Jamaican bobsled team made its debut in the Olympics at Calgary in 1988, amid wide-eyed stares from naysayers who thought it was nothing more than a joke.

But the team — which inspired the “Cool Runnings” movie that starred John Candy — surprised most with a series of strong finishes, albeit ones well out of medal contention. A lack of funding and other internal problems has kept Jamaica’s four-man sled out of the last two Olympic Games.

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“He was like an acrobat, who was very amusing, but we thought he had natural talent and strength so we asked him to come train with us,” said Dudley Stokes Jr., president of the Jamaica Bobsled Association. “He had no formal schooling, so far as I know, but he was a very sharp man.”

When Brown — who was 28th in the two-man event for Jamaica with Winston Watt in 2002 — began training in Canada full-time, he met a woman, fell in love, eventually got married and decided to try to obtain citizenship.

“Jamaica introduced me to bobsled,” Brown said. “Winston Watt, my pilot there, we had great adventures together like traveling and sliding. But we didn’t get a lot of time on the ice.”

That’s no problem in Canada. And now he’s got a medal.

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