I don't think we (me included) always appreciate just how spectacular Jamaica is in our track and field pursuits. The 18th Commonwealth Games has come to a close, and little island Jamaica placed 7th overall, in terms of gold medal count, and 9th, in terms of total medal tally. 10 gold, 4 silver, 8 bronze. I'm particularly pleased with this result because, even though our medal count in these large events is typically impressive, we tend to sell ourselves short by not snatching enough gold medals. So I'm really happy with the result.
We placed in the top 10, even though our participation in non-athletics events is minimal compared to many other countries (in fact, for this reason alone we will never be able to get much closer to the number one spot). But look at the countries that placed above us- Australia, England, Canada, India, South Africa, Scotland, Malaysia, New Zealand- all countries much larger than we are... but not that much better. Additionally, we placed 2nd in athletics, led only by the hosts.
But it's one particular statistic that truly astounds me. I only noticed this a while ago as I looked back as the results from individual events. Jamaica won EVERY SINGLE SPRINT EVENT at the games. I'll even list them for you:
100M Men - Asafa Powell
100M Women - Sheri-Ann Brooks
200M Men - Omar Brown
200M Women - Sherone Simpson
110M Hurdles Men - Maurice Wignall
100M Hurdles Women - Brigitte Foster-Hylton
4x100M Men
4x100M Women
It's just such a great achievement. Big up to the Ja team!
2 comments:
Wow! thanks for pointing this out. I didn't realize it till now. Big up JA!! (some upliftment at least!)
I've always commented on the speed of our Jamaican athletes. We are such a talented group of people especially when u think about what we have working against us(economic restraints, facilities, and CRIME)but i echo your words of praise for the team, they have surely done us proud and took us out of some bad spotlight even if it was for a few days.
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