There is a famous legend often referred in the Caribbean. The legend goes that when the Englishman came to colonise the Caribbean islands he brought with him thousands of West African slaves and the most fiery and rebellious of the slaves were sent to inhabit what is now modern Jamaica. And this the legend says explains the propensity of the island to produce aggressive cricketers and track scorching sprinters. Starting from aggressive batsmen like George Headley ( who was called the black bradman, but Jamaicans used to refer bradman as the 'white headley'!) to fiery fast bowlers like Michael Holding to ace sprinters like Usain Bolt.
The above legend can be passed off as myth but after seeing the eye-popping performance of the Jamaican sprinters in the just concluded Beijing Olympics - where lead by the mercurial Bolt they have swept almost all sprinting medals thereby upstaging the US - its hard not to believe in the legend. Along with Michael Phelps' 8 gold medal haul and China's stupendous medal winning spree to the top the performance of the Jamaican sprinting team will be part of Olympic folklore. For someone who has been fascinated by the pure romance associated with the sporting culture of the Caribbean islands this was undoubtedly one of my high points of the Olympics.
Even though Beijing 2008 saw Jamaica win sprinting gold medals for the first time, its not like Jamaica had not produced quality sprinters before. It did produce sprinters but due to the socio-economic condition of the country most of them went to more affluent countries in search of greener pasteurs and a better life. Sample this. The brilliant but disgraced sprinter Ben Johnson hailed from Jamaica but represented Canada, Linford Christie won the 1992 100m gold for Britain even though he was born in Jamaica, Donovon Bailey won the 1996 100m gold for Canada in spite of his Jamaican upbringing. So what has changed in the last decade? I would say the attitude of the Jamaican government which has taken it upon itself by promoting athletics in the country in a big way by providing sports infrastructure and scholarships which were the two main reasons for budding athletes to immigrate to countries like the US. This is the reason why the Jamaica is able to retain promising athletes who have reaped a rich harvest of medals in the Olympics.
Even though Beijing 2008 saw Jamaica win sprinting gold medals for the first time, its not like Jamaica had not produced quality sprinters before. It did produce sprinters but due to the socio-economic condition of the country most of them went to more affluent countries in search of greener pasteurs and a better life. Sample this. The brilliant but disgraced sprinter Ben Johnson hailed from Jamaica but represented Canada, Linford Christie won the 1992 100m gold for Britain even though he was born in Jamaica, Donovon Bailey won the 1996 100m gold for Canada in spite of his Jamaican upbringing. So what has changed in the last decade? I would say the attitude of the Jamaican government which has taken it upon itself by promoting athletics in the country in a big way by providing sports infrastructure and scholarships which were the two main reasons for budding athletes to immigrate to countries like the US. This is the reason why the Jamaica is able to retain promising athletes who have reaped a rich harvest of medals in the Olympics.
The 'Jamaican experiment' also has some serious lessons for India. Two in fact. One, there is no better way to produce medal winning sportsmen than providing them with good world class infrastructure. Infrastructure does not mean stadiums and facilities alone, but also 'soft infrastructure' like scholarship, monetary help etc. Two, India should concentrate on select events. Events which are more natural to Indians like those involving hand-eye coordination viz. shooting, archery,boxing etc. Once we have started excelling in these events consistently then we can concentrate on diversifying into other events. Apart from Jamaica, this approach has been followed by no less a country than China and India will do well to emulate it.
As for now, its time to sit back, enjoy and applaud the performance of Jamaica and hope we do something similar in the future.
Posts
1 comment:
sakkath blog maga..
Post a Comment