5. Jamaica remains the best Sprints nation in the world
We cannot talk about the 2016 Athletics season or the Rio Olympics without mentioning the prowess of Jamaica in sweeping the sprint (100m/200m) events once again, while remaining relevant in the relays.
The nation got the tag of ‘best sprints nation in the world’ at the Beijing 2008 Olympics where they won the 100m, 200m and 4x100m in the men’s category, with Usain Bolt setting World Record’s (WR) in all three events, while the women raced to the 100m and 200m titles. Since then, they’ve dominated at every major Championship they’ve participated in.
At the London 2012 Olympics, it was a clean sweep for the Jamaicans in the men’s 200m and a WR in the 4x100m, while Bolt and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce retained their 100m titles. Also, the men’s 4x100m relay team has not lost a race either at the Olympics or World Championships since 2008. At the 2015 World Championships in Beijing, the women’s 4x400m stunned USA to the GOLD medal, thus demonstrating their emerging relevance in the quarter-mile events.
Rio 2016 was rather important for the Caribbean nation to secure its status, due to the fact that a good number of its athletes were either plagued with injuries or weren’t performing at their best, while Bolt was of course under pressure to secure his legacy as the best Olympian the sport has ever seen, with Rio being his last outing.
The WR holder did this in style, winning the 100m in 9.81s before going on to make it a Double in the 200m with 19.78s, and then as expected, anchored the 4x100m team to the GOLD medal. This makes him the first man in history to win GOLD medals in the sprints at three consecutive Olympic Games.
Fraser-Pryce was also in line to make history as the first woman to be crowned the Olympic 100m Champion three times. With her being injured for the better part of the 2016 season, thus reducing her chances of even making the podium, it was a question of what country the GOLD medal would go to, or if it would remain in Jamaica.
However, the country did have a replacement in Elaine Thompson, who was a surprise 200m Silver medallist at the 2015 World Championships, and was already the 2016 world leader after setting a Personal Best (PB) of 10.70s at the Jamaican Championships.
Thompson made her Olympic debut a historic one by completing a rare sprint Double, winning the GOLD in the 100m with 10.71s and the 200m in 21.78s. Her astonishing feat made her the first woman to do so in both events at the same Olympics since Florence Griffith-Joyner accomplished same at the Seoul Games in 1988.
The 24-year old alongside Fraser-Pryce who won Bronze in the 100m, were part of the Silver winning 4x100m relay team, while the women’s 4x400m also got the same colour of medal behind USA.
With Bolt set to retire after 2017, one wonders if the Jamaican team will be fully equipped to retain this superiority, especially in the men’s sprints. That notwithstanding, this Athletic nation have demonstrated time and time again that they’re always able to find replacements from their vast pool of talents, so relinquishing their top spot in the sprints might not be happening any time soon.
