The Courier: The power of Jamaica’s track success

Dossier

Issue Nº XI (N.S.) - May/June 2009

The power of Jamaica’s track success

Since 1948, Jamaica has won 13 gold, 27 silver and 21 bronze medals at the Olympics and at the World Athletics Championships: seven golds, 29 silvers and 30 bronzes. Patrick Robinson*, a Jamaican judge at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, lauds his country’s model system for nurturing athletic talent which fosters self-reliance.

Olympic double sprint champion, Usain Bolt, celebrates with Jamaican flag, Beijing, 2008.

The Interscholastic Championship (CHAMPS) - an annual junior-level competition - is the training ground and launch pad for Jamaican athletics and has nurtured home grown talent for almost a century, Robinson explains in an interview with ‘The Courier’. Qualified coaches in each school rigorously prepare students for the prestigious event. “My thesis is that even though Jamaica has tremendous natural talent in athleticism, it is the system that has evolved since 1910 that underpins and explains Jamaica’s high performance in athletics at the international level”, says Robinson.

“All the athletes who won medals competed at CHAMPS as secondary school students, notably Usain Bolt, who is the current Class 1 CHAMPS record holder in the 200 and 400 metres with times of 20:25 seconds and 45:35 seconds, both done in 2003, and Veronica Campbell, who is the current CHAMPS Class I record holder in the 100 metres with a time of 11:13 seconds done in 2001”, says Robinson.Usain Bolt was the star of the track at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, becoming the first man to win the Olympic sprint double with world records in both the 100 and 200 metres.

“For a country to benefit fully from funding in sports, it must have a coherent sports policy which sees sports as an integral part of national development”, he says. There can be no better example of the potential of sport for development than the success of Jamaica’s top two coaches Stephen Francis (coach of Asafa Powell) and Glen Mills (coach of Usain Bolt). “By their example of professionalism and industry they have shown that Jamaicans can achieve success in athletics at the global level by staying and training in Jamaica, thereby, eliminating the need to go to the USA for training”, Robinson tells us.

“Jamaica benefits from the success of its athletes because the example of excellence, commitment, dedication, hard work and self-belief set by them is an inspiration for every Jamaican, and is to be contrasted with the negative images of violence with which our young people are bombarded daily by the media”, he adds. He says Jamaican atheletes and coaches can provide services in athletics to the entire world.

And sport creates opportunities for youngsters to be trained in a particular area for employment. Moreover, it helps keep youngsters off the streets and away from illegal activities. “This example of self-reliance is vital to national development, giving full force to the words of National Hero, Marcus Garvey: Up, up, you mighty race; you can accomplish what you will”, cites Robinson.

*Author of ‘Jamaican Athletics: A model for 2012 Olympics and the World’, Arcadia Books, London, 2009.

Debra Percival

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Sport centre field in PNG

Papua New Guinea (PNG) and the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) have developed a ten-year $US44.5M Sport for Development Initiative, shifting the policy focus in PNG from elite high performance athletes to sport for development. Grants will go to projects such as increased community participation in regular, quality sport and community projects piloting sport-based lifeskills activities, as well as coaching and administration courses. PNG’s sports foundation will also be strengthened.