THE EDITOR, Sir:
MY BROTHER and I spent every January to June watching every single athletics meet from 1975 until I left Jamaica in 1989. My brother continued that tradition and is now sitting in Berlin, as he has done in Sydney, Beijing and all over the world, commentating on Jamaican athletics.
At the time, I never knew I was watching the beginning of history. Some see the rise of Jamaican sprinters as sudden, recent and worthy of deeper scrutiny for possible drug usage. We do not.
Slowly, the truth about the depth of Jamaica's sprinting heritage is coming out, but let me relay a few historical points which I believe helped to create the Bolts and Frasers we now see before us.
What do Donavon Bailey, Linford Christie, Ben Johnson, Sanya Richards and Colin Jackson all have in common?
Failing at obligations
In the athletics world championship in 1983, Jamaican Bertland Cameron won the 400m yet, with all his promise, he never achieved any greater victory. Before Bertland, Jamaican schoolboys were consistently being awarded athletic scholarships to United States (US) colleges and universities. This trend would continue long after Bertland's success, and all had one thing in common. Irrespective of massive success in US domestic competition, mainly the NCAAs, Jamaican athletes consistently failed to fulfil their obvious potential once they flew off to the US.
Two Jamaican schoolboys, Raymond Stewart and Greg Meghoo, made the national team and won sliver medals in the 1984 Olympics. Note, please, that Ray Stewart was coached by Usain Bolt's current coach and that his alma mater, Camperdown High School, was known simply as the Sprint Factory. Some will remember Evrod Samuels.
High-quality coaching
Meanwhile, at the top of Old Hope Road in At Andrew, Dennis Johnson, former 100-yard record holder, coached a fully home-grown sprint relay team named Bolts of Lightning, who were unbeatable.
G.C. Foster Sports College, built by the Cubans, began churning out high-quality coaches.
By this time, there was a growing unhappiness with the return on investment Jamaica was getting from the athletes who left to take up those much-sought-after scholarships in the US. Among the athletics inner circle, the unthinkable was being said: perhaps these scholarships do not provide the best platform for the development of our athletes. Perhaps the US colleges were self-serving, burning out our athletes purely for collegiate success.
As in all things, money held the key. Could Jamaica support home-grown talent? Could Jamaica nurture and support world-class athletes, feed them, outfit them and support overseas travel to compete on the international stage?
The money was the final piece of the jigsaw. Natural talent, mixed with one of the best and most competitive school athletics programmes, met with the realisation that 'Nuh wey no better dan yard' and, finally, we dropped the 'every ting from foreign is better' attitude.
You and the rest of the world are now witnessing the end product. A huge percentage of the Jamaican track and field team are home-grown. Many have chosen to stay home and develop rather than take up US scholarships. Bolt and Powell are examples of this; so are the top women sprinters. In a unique twist, United Kingdom sprinters now attend Jamaican sprint camps in Jamaica.
I hope the naysayers will begin to accept that Jamaica has the heritage, depth and motivation to produce the athletes we have without drugs.
PS: Thanks to Puma, Victoria Mutual, Milo, C&W, Digicel, D&G and all the many other sponsors who never gave up on Jamaica
I am, etc.,
Paul Lawrence
paul.lstc@gmail.com
London, UK