Rapper, TV personality Flavor Flav tries bobsleigh and skeleton, joins U.S. Olympic team as hype man

At 66 years old, Flavor Flav went 106 kilometres per hour, and that was all it took to get him hooked on sliding.

Meet the newest fan of the United States bobsled and skeleton program: A Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, founding member of Public Enemy, reality show star and now, an aspiring slider. USA Bobsled and Skeleton announced Flav as its new official hype man Monday, not long after he spent a couple days around the team at the 2002 Olympic track in Utah.

The 66-year-old Flav — his legal name is William Jonathan Drayton Jr. — spent time with the bobsled and skeleton teams this past week. He went down the Park City track in a bobsled, then also wanted to try out skeleton, the headfirst sliding sport where elite athletes can reach speeds exceeding 129 km/h.Team officials wanted Flav to start from a low spot on the track, as is the case with all first timers for safety reasons. Flav didn’t necessarily like that; he wanted to start from higher up, significantly raising the level of difficulty. Eventually, he got his chance and he hit 108 km/h on his second run.

This isn’t Flav’s first rodeo with Olympic sports. At the Paris Olympics, he served as the official hype man for the U.S. women’s water polo team. He’s also been spotted at various sporting events, including serving as a celebrity mayo-pourer at the Duke’s Mayo Bowl last year, where he helped douse Minnesota coach P.J. Fleck with 5 gallons of celebratory condiment. Many team members scored Flav’s personal cell phone number and even joined him at a Maroon 5 concert over the weekend. The Hip-Hop icon plans to return to Park City after the Olympics to participate in a sliding camp.