John Napier will be representing his country abroad soon enough. One of the locations could be Vancouver. The other might be Afghanistan.

He hopes both.

Last week Napier, 22, earned a place on the U.S. Bobsled World Cup team in trials at Park City, Utah.

Now there's a very good chance of fulfilling a childhood dream -- winning a spot on the U.S. Olympic team.

But Napier is a sergeant in the Army, and like many of his teammates is assigned to the military's World Class Athlete Program. (Another is Caleb Campbell, the West Point grad drafted in 2008 by the Detroit Lions.)

Early next year his two personas -- slider and soldier will collide.

The 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver are slated to kick off right around the time Napier's Vermont National Guard unit will be preparing to deploy to Afghanistan.

If Napier doesn't make the Olympic team, he likely will ship off with his unit.

"I'm still a soldier first," he said earlier this week. "If that's where they send me, that's where I go."

But if he does make the U.S. team, Napier could be held back with the program even after the Games -- although he said he will seek to rejoin his unit overseas.

"It's been my lifelong dream to make the Olympics," he said, "but I feel obligated.... I didn't join [the military] to get out of service."

In his mind, there's really no decision to be made; he serves two teams for one country. That doesn't mean he isn't torn.

"That is my son," Betsy Napier said. "He feels duty to his unit."

Napier is a rarity in bobsledding: someone who grew up around the sport. His father William, who died in 2005, raced and later became the U.S. Bobsled and Skeleton Federation's president. Mom, a race secretary and former slider, often can be found in Lake Placid, N.Y., on winter weekends.

A day after protests disrupted the relay, Olympic torchbearers ran, rode and rolled through Vancouver Island towns early yesterday in the 106-day journey across Canada.

In Duncan, British Columbia, nearly 40 miles north of Victoria, where the relay began, hundreds of people lined both sides of a street near the historic downtown train station to cheer the torchbearers.

Earlier in the day, the flame visited Fort Rodd Hill in Colwood. It was welcomed by the Royal Canadian Legion, the 5th B.C. Field Regiment, a Royal Canadian Artillery brass band and spectators dressed in military period dress.

Jeff Hollands, one of 120 veterans carrying the torch, rode his wheelchair to Fort Rodd Hill, the site of a 19th century coastal artillery fort. He trained for the relay by lifting milk jugs. "What an honor to represent my country," Hollands said. "It was just an unbelievable experience."

Today, the torch will be carried on a skateboard and logging truck. In northern Canada, it will be pulled by dogsled and transported on an Inuit kayak.

The Jamaican bobsled team, made famous during the 1988 Olympics in Calgary and later the movie "Cool Runnings" hopes to be in Vancouver in February. If it is, it may have U.S. slider Todd Hays to thank.

Hays, a longtime standout driver for the U.S. bobsled team, has agreed to lend some equipment to the cash-strapped Jamaicans.

Jamaica's bobsled driver, Hannukkah Wallace, and push athlete Marvin Dixon were in Lake Placid, N.Y., for early season training this month.

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