Photo: Robert Laberge/Getty Images; National Journal illustration

Jamaica's underfunded underdogs are going back to the Olympics—and this time their trip is backed not by wealthy businessmen but by a legion of generous Internet fans.

Bobsled driver Winston Watts and brakeman Marvin Dixon qualified for the Sochi Games, but their entry was in jeopardy after they came up $80,000 short of the funding needed to make the trip.

Enter the Internet.

Crowdfunding sites Crowdtilt and Indiegogo took up the Jamaicans' cause, hauling in six figures in just two days from donors around the world (the original fundraising deadline was nine days). "The outpouring of support at the grassroots level through crowdfunding sites was tremendous and humbling," said Chris Stokes, a member of the 1988 team that inspired the movie Cool Runnings and the current head of the Jamaica Bobsleigh Federation.

Perhaps most unusual—$30,000 of the crowdfunding dollars came from Dogecoin, an online "cryptocurrency"—the same concept as Bitcoin—that's based on the popular doge meme. The Dogecoin Foundation gave 27 million of its digital units to the Crowdtilt campaign. The currency created late last year calls itself the most-traded digital currency and pegs its value at $0.0018 per doge.