Reason for Jamaican sprint success?

[Alcyallen]

It's always a strange talk because there is always somebody who just has to.....that's racist.....when actually it's; simply common sense. Hell, just open your eyes BOOM there is is.

Who can forget this...

https://www.runnerspace.com/video.php?video_id=74492

[Jacksf]

Well there are far more (west African) blacks in the US than Jamaica.
There are more blacks in other Caribbean nations than in Jamaica.
There are FAR more West Africans in Africa than in Jamaica.
So that really doesn't explain Jamaican sprint success at all.

[Alcyallen]

Well there are far more (west African) blacks in the US than Jamaica.
There are more blacks in other Caribbean nations than in Jamaica.
There are FAR more West Africans in Africa than in Jamaica.
So that really doesn't explain Jamaican sprint success at all.

There are more stud sprinters in the USA than Jamaica.
What nations would that be?
We all know how screwed up Africa is

Simply a country where everybody had a relative who was a sprinter, and they care about being the fastest kid on the block.

[Alcyallen]

Imagine the early 50;s with the worlds top three 400m sprinters being Jamaicans. Yep, talking George Rhoden, Herb McKenley and Arthur Wint they won Olympic medals in the 100, 400, 800 and the 4x4 smashing the world record (200m Les Laing)

[Wiederganger]

The thing is, it hasn't always been that way. Cast your eye over the women's 100m & 200m Olympic medalists, and the pattern you see is:

1920's & 30's - Canada & USA
1940's & 50's - Australia
1960's - USA & Australia
1970's - GDR
1980's - USA
1990's - USA & JAM
00's till now - JAM & USA

On the men's side, it's basically the USA all up until 2008, which was when we really see Jamaica emerge as THE nation to beat.

Other than what has already been said - genetic pool, the culture of athletics, including from a young age - one also has to mention the genetic freak that is Usain Bolt, who without him, the men's medal haul would be nowhere near as great as it is.

I will also mention the elephant in the room, which is the lack of testing that occurred at the end of the 00's. I will keep this to FACTS and not baseless accusations but this has to be contributing factor.

Rough time line:

1. In 2010 WADA dissolved the board of Jadco because it contained the country's head of athletics – an obvious conflict of interest.
2. Jamaica had no Whereabouts Information Officer to keep track of its athletes out of competition, only one full-time doping control officer and that "the committee in charge of reviewing the legitimacy of medical prescriptions for athletes was without a chairman and had never met".
3. Jamaica has only conducted ONE random test between March and July 2012
4. In 2013, David Howman, Wada's director general said "Jamaica is a high priority. They're on our radar. There was a period during the beginning part of 2012 where there was no effective operation. No testing. So we were worried about it."
5. Then, such was the lack of testing that the then IAAF had to publicly castigate Jamaica and launch an audit, planned for 2013, but pushed back, at Jamaica's request to 2014.
6. Eight Jamaican athletes tested positive in 2013, including former 100-meter record holder Asafa Powell and three-time Olympic medalist Sherone Simpson. Powell and Simpson had their 18-month bans cut to six months by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
7. Three-time Olympic gold medalist sprinter Veronica Campbell-Brown tested positive for a banned diuretic at a national meet, but was cleared by CAS because of flaws in the test collection procedure.
8. By 2015, Jamaica still hadn't started blood testing.
9. In 2017 German documentary maker Hajo Seppelt said "several" of the Caribbean island's athletes had traces of clenbuterol, a banned muscle-building substance, in recent re-tests of 8-year-old urine samples.

[Atticus]

Well there are far more (west African) blacks in the US than Jamaica.
There are more blacks in other Caribbean nations than in Jamaica.
There are FAR more West Africans in Africa than in Jamaica.
So that really doesn't explain Jamaican sprint success at all.

Here it is, most succinctly:
.

No mystery, Jamacia's sprint dominance is due to genetics and culture.

[TrackFanSUI]

No mystery, Jamacia's sprint dominance is due to genetics and culture.

To be precise, it's not just Jamaica, it's the Caribbean in general, but as you ve said cultural national sport like Football in Europe. Other Caribbean states have the same conditions, but they're way smaller.
For example Kim Collins is from St. Kitts And Nevis. Their population is 50k.
Bahamas has 380K and with Gardiner, SMU, big athletes as well.

So if you calculate it... Amount of track and field athletes competing on world stage per 100'000 habitants.... It's pretty similar for every Caribbean country.
+jamaicans have more idols to look up and see what they've achieved and say look he/she has done it, it's also realistic for me.


Apart from Cuba and Dominican Republic.. Sport is just unpopular there smh.

[Conor Dary]

Well there are far more (west African) blacks in the US than Jamaica.
There are more blacks in other Caribbean nations than in Jamaica.
There are FAR more West Africans in Africa than in Jamaica.
So that really doesn't explain Jamaican sprint success at all.

As if the only option for sport for US athletes was track.

Lots of the West African countries are very good at soccer which is where the sporting talent goes.

[Dave]

Somewhere on a similar thread, I suggested that Jamaican sprinting could be destroyed by placing a D1 school or two in Kingston along with an NFL team. Watch the talent slip away from track and field.

since there seems to be lots of insinuating that being black is critical to being a fast sprinter. How many great African sprinters have there been over the past millennia or two? Perhaps a handful? Whereas the US, UK, France, and the Caribbean countries dominate the semifinals of every world competition.

[Alcyallen]

Somewhere on a similar thread, I suggested that Jamaican sprinting could be destroyed by placing a D1 school or two in Kingston along with an NFL team. Watch the talent slip away from track and field.

since there seems to be lots of insinuating that being black is critical to being a fast sprinter. How many great African sprinters have there been over the past millennia or two? Perhaps a handful? Whereas the US, UK, France, and the Caribbean countries dominate the semifinals of every world competition.

Who is insinuating, it is simply a well known and obvious fact that sprinters with western African roots rule the sprint world.

Fastest Canadians...Donovan Bailey, Bruny Surin, Harry Jerome, Andre DeGrasse
Fastest France,,,,Jimmy Vicaut, Roger Bambuck
Fastest GB....Linford Christie, Dwain Chambers, John Regis
Fastest USA....Tyson Gay, Justin Gatlin, Bob Hayes

Anywhere with western African sprinters, they rule. And there have been far more than just a handful out of African countries.

There is a reason nobody without those western African roots has ever ran a sub 9.90. Then there is that tall and fast and big and fast like we see in football.

Football might grab some from the pro ranks but we'd still be seeing them in the NCAA like we do now. TONS of NFLers ran college track.

[Atticus]

There is a reason nobody without those western African roots has ever ran a sub 9.90.

Bingtian Su (9.83) is on Line 1 for you.

[Alcyallen]

Bingtian Su (9.83) is on Line 1 for you.

My bad, yep......................................one.

Now look at that alll time China 100m vs Trinidad

[Conor Dary]

How many great African sprinters have there been over the past millennia or two? Perhaps a handful? Whereas the US, UK, France, and the Caribbean countries dominate the semifinals of every world competition.

Ever been to West Africa?...the opportunities in track are on the short side.

1977 Ghana...

[ATK]

since there seems to be lots of insinuating that being black is critical to being a fast sprinter. How many great African sprinters have there been over the past millennia or two? Perhaps a handful? Whereas the US, UK, France, and the Caribbean countries dominate the semifinals of every world competition.

African countries haven't exactly had the same amount of access and representation when it comes to the sport over the past 124 years since the first Olympics. Most only started competing at the Games in the 1950s and even then, many were dealing with the decolonization of the continent over the 3+ decades after that (1992 was Namibia's first Games!). And even South Africa, though prominent at the early Olympics, only had a handful of Black athletes competing for decades.

[TN1965]

The African record in men's 100m is currently held by a Kenyan!