How does Jamaica produce so many world class sprinters? They MUST be cheating

Sometimes, when watching videos of athletics highlights or discussing a track meet that included a race in which Jamaicans did well, something usually seems to come up and it stinks of either naivety or jealously. “How does Jamaica manage to do so well in track and field, especially in the sprints when they are so small? They must be cheating”. When fingers point at minor drug tests people like Asafa Powell or Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce failed at different stages of their careers, it was proven to be simple mistakes or incompetence such as not reporting painkillers taken for pain caused by newly tightened braces. They got very lenient sentences reflecting their “crimes”, and not banned for years or even for life like other serious offenders were. They then say Bolt was just lucky and smart, and will be caught soon. Why do people conveniently forget about prodigies? They do exist. Hard work is the basis of success for anything in life, this is true. You could be more talented than Bolt himself, you would have to put in the work he did or else you won’t sniff the Olympics. However, why is it when person A and person B put in the same amount of hard work, person A is just simply better? You can see it in any sport. Gretzky in ice hockey, Jordan in basketball, Phelps in swimming, Djokovic in tennis and so on. This isn’t even restricted to just sports of course. IQ I feel is dangerous to rely on as the sole measure of someone’s intelligence, but the fact is that the Einstein’s of the world just have faster brains than the rest of us. It’s not to say someone is superior, or something to be ashamed of as we are all ultimately equal as humans. It is just like as my father used to say, we are all given scores or attributes out of 100. Maybe someone has as many as 70 points in beauty and is the most attractive person you’ve ever seen, but has 0 points in charisma and is also the most boring person you’ve ever met, and so on. We are equal in the way we all get the 100 points, and we just have them all distributed differently. Most of us are probably pretty balanced, and can do many things to a decent level, but truly stand out at nothing. I guess that is what makes us ‘average humans’. Some however, do get an overwhelming amount of points in one area and these are the prodigies we see. It is no coincidence that a lot of our modern day geniuses in every facet of life, seem to have some glaring shortcoming elsewhere. Floyd Mayweather isn’t the most intelligent man you will meet, but you will never out-box him. Michael Jackson seemed to struggle with mental issues his entire life, but look how awesome at entertainment he was. The point is, Lionel Messi and let’s say, Angel Di Maria, are both exceptional footballers who won the last World Cup with Argentina. As great as Di Maria is, he does not hold a candle to Messi. I promise you he worked just as hard, if not harder than Messi did, but the latter is just more talented. Plain and simple, In fact, you could argue that less talented people have to work even harder, just to keep up with the extremely talented, who can just coast by on their natural abilities at times.

Now, I touched on individual examples but also sometimes it’s cultural and sometimes genetic. People of East African decent seem to be able to run for hours without breaking a sweat, but you don’t see any Ethiopian or Eritrean sprinters very often, do you? Conversely, people of West African decent, which includes Caribbean and North American black people, tend to have a lot of fast twitch muscles and are therefore exceptional sprinters. You almost never hear of a Caribbean finalist in an Olympic distance race. As far as the cultural aspect goes, look at some countries who are massive in every sense of the word; geographically, population, and economically, such as India. Just as how Jamaica is usually at or near the top for medals per capita in the Olympics. India is usually near the bottom. You could see Jamaica getting say 10 medals for its less than 3 million people, and then India gets 2 for having 1.5 billion. Is it because Indians are bad at sports? I wouldn’t go that far. The country is cricket mad. They may not be THE definitively best team, but when you think of the sport you probably think India first. It is engrained into the culture and probably every athletically talented young Indian ends up playing cricket from a young age, drastically lowering the talent pool for other sports. 

As for other countries who do well relative to their size, but somehow is conveniently forgotten in these conversations, look to Uruguay or Croatia in football for example. Both countries have populations under 4 million people, and thus are comparable to Jamaica in size. Uruguay has two world cups to its name (one of only 8 countries to ever in the tournament, being by far the smallest), while it has the joint most Copa America titles at 15, tied with Argentina. Brazil, by contrast has 9 titles in third, and has a population of over 200 million. Then, Croatia has gotten medals at the last two world cups. Serial footballing powerhouses such as England and Germany have well over 50 million people each and haven’t come close to matching their recent performances. Other examples in other sports are New Zealand, who have a population of just over 5 million, but are consistently among the best in a few sports, such as rugby, cricket and netball. Finland also has a population under 6 million and continuously punches above its weight in winter sports and also in throwing disciplines in athletics, such as the javelin throw. Seeing the trend in throwing events over the years, perhaps Nordic people have genes that suit great displays of power and strength, like West Africans have speed, something I’ve even heard referred to as “Viking strength”. Additionally, Slovenia, has a population slightly smaller than Jamaica even, and is currently an excellent basketball team. Yes, like Jamaica and Bolt, they have produced a prodigy in Luka Doncic, but there are also other very talented players, such as the Dragic brothers. 

In Jamaica’s case, not only could there be some genetic advantages for sprints as mentioned earlier due to our ancestors, but there is also the huge cultural aspect. You will struggle to find anywhere in the world that gives such attention to a nationwide high school athletics meet than Jamaica does to its “champs”. When the Bolt led Jamaica teams of the late 2000s took the world by storm, so many people were curious about the sprinting culture of the island. So, soon many global news teams were descending upon Jamaica each year on the eve of champs to see for themselves, and many were thoroughly impressed, and immediately understood. It even goes beyond that. I was never a particularly fast child, yet, like probably every other person born and raised on the island, ran in at least one relay as a child at a school’s ‘sports day’. Running fas is just something you do growing up in Jamaica, and the standouts among us are then taught how to sprint.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there have definitely been some cheaters in Jamaica, who are instantly shamed and shunned. Steve Mullings was one of the fastest men in the world from 2009-11, then was caught and banned for life, and never heard from again. I have never once heard a Jamaican talk positively of him since.

The final point I will make, is somewhat hilarious to me. When I quiz these people further on how Jamaica is managing to cheat but no one can catch them, beyond corruption on a local scale (this is what they go to first), I then ask what about when they are tested by the governing global bodies that carry out the tests in other countries such as at the Olympics, I get told that Jamaica must have developed drugs that cannot be detected yet. People. Be serious. I say this with all the love in the world but Jamaica’s currency is that of a third world country. How on earth do you expect Jamaica to carry out systemic doping programs like Russia or East Germany have done in the past? With what money? What technology? With what massive population/dedicated work force to such a task? The country doesn’t even have close to the landmass to have the space to place such facilities, as say Russia could with some lab holed up in deep Siberia.

At the end of the day, it seems to be rooted in jealousy by people just upset that their country , or team, can’t have it all (*ahem*, Americans). This particular article was inspired by comments under a video showcasing Jamaica’s Oblique Seville running a world leading time in the 100m and beating Noah Lyles in the process at a recent meet. They point out Jamaica is about the size of the city of Philadelphia, but then in the same breath say that same tiny country that shouldn’t be so talented, can also produce drugs that no one else on earth can even fathom. Just remember that we all (countries and individuals) are good at something. One of Jamaica’s just happens to be athletics, and in particular, sprinting.