Jamaican sprint records: more where this came from
Usain Bolt, Asafa Powell, Veronica Campbell-Brown, Yohan Blake, Kerron Stewart, Nesta Carter, Merlene Ottey…just a few of the great Jamaican sprinters who have dominated athletics in recent years. But why them? And why Jamaica?
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Related:
- Running Motivation: Usain Bolt, Tyson Gay, Yohan Blake, Jeremy Wariner
- Interview: Usain Bolt Looks Forward to London
- Jamaica’s Sprinters on top for London Olympics – and beyond
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Jamaica punches way above its weight when it comes to sprinting. One little island with just under 3 million people, it ranks 113th in the world in per-capita GDP ranks – down there with the Congo, Brunei, and Iceland. It doesn’t have leading universities, global corporations, a network of well-endowed pro sports clubs, or other institutions that support athletic excellence in the world’s developed nations. And yet, for decades, a disproportionate number of the world’s fastest men and women have run in the gold, green and black of Jamaica.
The two possible explanations for Jamaica’s success on the track? The same “explanations” habitually proposed for almost any variance in any human behaviour – it’s either genetics or culture. Nature v nurture. Or both.
A study published in 2008 and co-conducted by Errol Morrison, the president of the University of Technology in Kingston, Jamaica, seems to favour the genetic explanation. Morrison and his colleagues in Jamaica and in Glasgow (!) analyzed the chemical composition of the muscles in sprinters like Powell and women’s 100m national champ Sherone Simpson. A motherlode of an enzyme called Actinen A was found in the runners’ fast-twitch muscle fibres (the muscle components that determine acceleration, reflexes, and speed). Seventy per cent of the 200 Jamaican sprinters in the study were found to have Actinen A – but only 30% of Aussies (the control group in this study) have the magic ingredient in their muscle fibre.
(The Aussies, though, were off the charts in the occurrence of a digestive enzyme that makes it possible to drink enormous quantities of crap beer without showing any apparent effects.)
So if you believe this research, you’ll believe that Jamaicans are naturally gifted for sprinting and Australians are not. So far, though, I haven’t seen results for other nations that normally place runners on the start line at Olympic Games and World Championship sprint finals: principally other Caribbean countries and the United States. We need some data on top runners who don’t come from Jamaican bloodlines.
From Best Player’s perspective, the cultural explanation for Jamaica’s success is more interesting, because it suggests that excellence can be cultivated whether or not its potential is already there in the genes. In Jamaica, excellence in running is the thing: the same way Brazilians and Italians live for soccer or Canadians for hockey is how Jamaicans feel about athletics. In writing an in-depth Globe and Mail exploration of Jamaica’s love of running, columnist Jeff Blair attends the country’s 4-day high school track & field championships, along with 30,000 other fans, including the Prime Minister, some Olympic medalists, and execs from major corporate sponsors…and tells us of the massive effect that a running culture has on the track & field performance of the country’s young athletes.
Wait a sec: high school championships? Not even American football draws that much hometown support for 16- and 17-year-old athletes. In Jamaica, says one famous track coach, “We are a country of runners, who from a young age aspire to be stars.” Winners at this high-school meet have gone on – 26 times – to represent Jamaica at the Olympics. They’ve also gone on to become local and international stars, as Jamaican and global TV networks also cover the events, and those sponsors appear willing to bestow riches on the next Shelley-Anne Frasers and Yohan Blakes.
What effect does this have on the rest of the country? Well, put it this way: Jamaica doesn’t produce a lot of soccer players, hockey stars, boxers or basketballers. There are some cricketers who make it to the world stage, and the famed bobsled team – but mostly, kids grow up idolizing runners – especially sprinters – and competing in their own school and community races as long as they have a chance of succeeding.
So, sure – maybe Jamaicans have some genetic advantage over Australians, Poles, and Greeks when it comes to flat-out speed. But maybe more important is the advantage their culture gives them in incubating, fostering, and exploding their track stars onto podiums around the world. Expect to see more green-and-gold taking medals in London…and by the way, the East Africans had better be watching over their shoulders in the 10,000m and marathon a few years from now – Blair’s article mentions in passing that Jamaica’s next focus will be the middle- and long-distance events.
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