Reason for Jamaican sprint success?

[FleetingRedux]

While one could it to attribute it to the demographics, body-types or ethnic heritage of the population (West Central African), there certainly is a strong cultural 'appreciation' of T&F in Jamaica. Popular renown and financial incentives are strong there.

Whatever it is, I like and appreciate it. It was hard for even the most jingoistic American fan NOT to root for their greatest national athletics heroes,

The demographics, body-types or ethnic heritage argument is the same for all West African and most Caribbean countries. Jamaica doesn't have anything special there.

[Flumpy]

Merlene Ottey

#LoveLiveTheQueen

[FleetingRedux]

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.

The testing has gotten better and they(women) are still running fast. It's not drugs.

[gh]

and that's enough of this