A must read article from the Daily Reporter in Greenfield Indiana (http://www.greenfieldreporter.com):
KINGSTON, Jamaica — The numbers don't add up.
Jamaica, an island that covers less territory than
Connecticut and has about as many people as Utah, travels to the Olympics, all
but plants its green, yellow and black flag into the stadium turf and turns the
soundtrack into a continuous loop of its national anthem, "Jamaica, Land
We Love."
The Caribbean country of 2.7 million people won 11 medals at
the Beijing Olympics, all in track and field, and is a good bet to hit that
number again this year in London.
Sure, Usain Bolt is part of that. But not the only part.
Veronica Campbell-Brown, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Asafa
Powell, Yohan Blake: All of them among the fastest in a country built for
speed.
There are seemingly as many explanations for this success as
there are medal contenders. A compelling one comes from Novlene Williams-Mills.
She's a 400-meter sprinter who has two Olympic medals, won in the last two
1,600-meter relays. This year, though, she has something even more rare. She's
the only person with a 2012 victory over Sanya Richards-Ross, the odds-on
favorite to win the 400 meters in London.
"We're a poor country and not a lot of people have
cars, so as a kid, you end up running everywhere," explained
Williams-Mills, who grew up in rural St. Ann Parish on Jamaica's northern coast.
"When I was young, I used to go with my mother and she wouldn't take me in
her arms, so I had to run after her everywhere."
As for the more traditional explanations, a nod goes to the
warm, sultry climate that allows athletes to train outdoors virtually 365 days
a year and the hilly terrain that gives them good places to run. There's the
unbending focus on physical education in schools. Family support, community
support and national pride get a fair share of credit, as well.
Cynics might say Jamaica thrives because everything isn't
quite above-board — that maybe there's something more than just the
vitamin-rich root vegetables and clean living mixing through all that Jamaican
blood. Bolt has never shied away from those questions. He devoted an entire
chapter in his autobiography to the suspicions about doping in his country. He
said there were times when he was tested four times a week before the Beijing
Games. None of his tests have ever come back positive.
"The testers can form a queue outside my house if they
want to, because the more often they test me and other athletes to show that we
are clean, the better it is for the sport," he wrote.
One other explanation: There aren't many sports to siphon
off the talent pool in Jamaica, the way there are in the United States. Yes,
Jamaica loves its soccer and cricket. Bolt still likes playing both, and every
now and then, some story — usually untrue — surfaces about him hurting himself
in a charity or pickup soccer game. He knows, as do all the other sprinters,
that besides the one or two athletes who might dream of becoming part of the
legendary Jamaican bobsled team, there's only one obvious path for an athlete
to make a name for himself on this island: Running fast.
"The sports we do have, we focus on an awful lot,"
said Keiron Stewart, a Jamaican who attends University of Texas and finished
fourth in the 100-meter hurdles at Jamaican Olympic trials. "Plus, there's
the fact that we have very good role models."
Walk to the front of National Stadium in Kingston and you
can see the statues of the people Stewart is talking about.
Donald Quarrie is to sprinting what Bob Marley is to reggae
in Jamaica. Quarrie competed in five Olympics, won medals in four of them and,
in 1976, became the first person to win a gold medal for Jamaica since it
became an independent country.
On the women's side, Merlene Ottey enjoyed an even more
impressive career, winning nine Olympic medals between 1980 and 2000. The end
of her career was tainted with controversy — a positive doping test that was
later overturned and the drama she caused by petitioning her way onto the
Olympic team in 2000, at age 40, despite finishing fourth at trials. She won a
bronze medal at the Sydney Games, however, and still inspires Jamaican
sprinters today.
"I always wanted to be like Merlene Ottey because she
is a warrior," said Shericka Williams, who won silver in the 400 in 2008,
finishing one spot ahead of Richards-Ross.
Richards-Ross has ties to Jamaica herself. Her mother,
Sharon, is Jamaican and Richards-Ross lived in Kingston until she was 12. She
moved to America and now competes for the red, white and blue, but still
receives a warm welcome whenever she returns. Her last trip here was in May,
when she lost in the 400-meter race to Williams-Mills at National Stadium.
"Growing up, everyone wants to be a track star
there," Richards-Ross said. "I remember when I was 7 years old and I
started running, it was a big deal. We had great coaches at a young age. I was
doing block starts and working on my technique. I think that focus and
intensity at a very young age gets us prepared for what's to come. I think
that's a key ingredient to what's so special. And because people care about it,
you want to be real good. It's a motivating factor."
About 30 years after Quarrie's victory, Asafa Powell took up
the banner for Jamaica, lowering the world record in the 100 to 9.77, then
9.74. In many corners of the country, he's still more popular than Bolt because
he's the one who first put Jamaica's track prowess on center stage in the 21st
century. His problem: He could never win the big one.
Even before Powell started dominating, women carried the
banner for this country and began turning it into a track power for the 2000s.
In the years after Jackie Joyner-Kersee retired and Marion
Jones fell from grace, there was a void in women's track. Campbell-Brown
started filling it when she won Olympic gold in the 200 meters in 2004 and led
the relay team to the gold, as well.
She was the flagbearer at the Beijing Olympics, but she
arrived in China only after realizing how tough the competition in her own
country had become. She finished fourth at Jamaican Olympic trials and settled
for a spot in only one individual race, the 200 meters.
Once she got to Beijing, she saw that she truly had been
beaten by the best. The Jamaican women swept the medals in the 100-meter race
without the woman many thought to be their best sprinter. Fraser-Pryce won
gold, while Sherone Simpson and Kerron Stewart tied for silver to complete the
first-ever women's 100-meter medals sweep at the Olympics. Campbell-Brown
repeated her 200 title. Those four sprinters head to London with a combined 10
Olympic medals.
"Most of the athletic talent you see in this country
comes in track and field," Campbell-Brown said. "Because of that, you
see a lot of very good sprinters. A lot of it also has to do with our history
and our culture. Jamaicans are known to be very hard working, very dedicated.
They enjoy competing. They enjoy supporting their best athletes."
At the Jamaican Olympic trials, sprinter after sprinter
brought up another point: How inspiring it is to see National Stadium packed by
people in a poor country who shell out the $10 or $20 dollars for tickets to
see their stars run for 10, 20, sometimes 50 seconds.
"There's just an atmosphere and the love people have
for track and field," Kerron Stewart said. "When you see thousands of
people come out to watch you run, it makes you want to put on a show."
Inspiring as it may be, there is nothing pretentious about
the shrine in which they run.
Had National Stadium had been built 50 years ago in Dallas
or New York or Miami, it would have been bulldozed long ago. There are no
skyboxes, no luxury suites, only one video scoreboard — and no beer or cable
company has swooped in to buy the naming rights.
But the history is there — and still being made.
Any Jamaican who ever paid attention in civics class while
counting the minutes before going outside for gym can tell you exactly why
athletics, national independence and this creaky old 35,000-seat stadium are
all so intertwined.
It was at midnight on Aug. 6, 1962, in National Stadium that
the Union Jack, the flag of the British Empire that once ruled this Caribbean
colony, was lowered for the final time and replaced by the yellow, black and
green Jamaican flag that flies today.
On Aug. 6, 2012 — the 50th anniversary of Jamaican
independence — the medals ceremony for the men's 100-meter dash will take place
at Olympic Stadium in London.
"That's the day the gold will go to Bolt and the anthem
will be played and our flag will be raised in that stadium," said Junior
Anthony Clarke, a track fan who came to watch Olympic trials, glossing over the
fact that another Jamaican, Blake, is also a strong candidate win that medal.
"It's going to be very significant in terms of demonstrating not only the
strides we've made in track and sports, but that we are, truly, a strong, independent
country."
