Schools key to Jamaica’s athletic success

Anyone who spent time last week watching the TV coverage of the World Track and Field Championships would find themselves left with at least one interesting question about Jamaica — but we’ll get to that.

The International Association of Athletic Federations Championships featured many, if not most, of the world’s young elite athletes competing in one of the world’s great venues: the Beijing “bird’s nest” stadium. With 91,000 spectators filling the stadium, it was a spectacle not to be forgotten.

Canada fared well, and Sport Canada had every reason to celebrate the successes of its athletes who have been fostered and supported by the Sport Support Program, which funds national sports organizations.

Sport Canada and its far-sighted Long Term Athlete Development program have been a successful influence on the development of athletes in this country. LTAD advocates logical stages of development from “active start” (0-6 years) through “learning fundamentals” “learning to train” and, finally, “active for life.”

With LTAD, Sport Canada has brought sanity to situations where parents, and sometimes coaches, push kids too hard too early.

All well and good, but the IAAF championships still left us with that one interesting question unanswered; How is it that a tiny country, Jamaica, with a population of only 2.8 million people, consistently produces track athletes who leave others, especially runners from larger countries (Canada with 36 million and the U.S. with 319 million), in the dust?

Here is part of the answer: It starts in the schools.

Since independence in 1962 and before that, having survived Spanish rule, a British invasion and various political rebellions, Jamaica has consistently produced world-class athletes in track and field.

In Jamaica, involvement in athletics begins at a young age. Most Jamaican schools have an athletics program, and budding young athletes who impress at the primary-school level get themselves recognized by good athletics schools such as St. Jago High, Kingston College and Vere Technical High.

In Jamaica, it is not uncommon for young athletes to attain press coverage and national fame long before they arrive on the international athletics stage.

But it is “the Champs,” as they are known, the National High School Track and Field event, which is, no contest, the most celebrated and watched sports event in the country.

Champs is a nationwide competition among high school teams, consisting of athletes aged 10 to 19. But it’s more than that. Most important, it’s five days of cultural excitement.

It’s probably the most competitive junior championships in the world. And it’s more about teams, about getting the most points to make your school the champion.

On the basis of population, the Champs are bigger in Jamaica than either of the big-money professional events, the Stanley Cup or the Grey Cup, here in Canada.

The Champs are also regarded as good preparation for major championships, since some of the records are world-class. The young athletes are normally competing in front of crowds of 20,000 to 25,000 people — and this at a high school event.

So athletes such as Veronica Campbell-Brown, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Usain Bolt and Asafa Powell did not just show up from nowhere. They had been celebrated athletes in their own country since before their high school days, emerging onto the international scene out of something close to a cultural mania for track and field.

Many other notable Canadian athletes came to Canada from Jamaica.

Sprinter Charmaine Crooks competed at four consecutive Olympics for Canada, winning a silver medal in the 4x400-metre relay, but was born in Mandeville, Jamaica. Rising star Canadian 400-metre runner Alistair Moona is Jamaican-born.

Donovan Bailey was born in Manchester, Jamaica.

Molly Killingbeck, who moved to Canada from Jamaica at age 13, was a sprinter who, in international competition, has won 16 golds, 13 silvers and seven bronzes at the 200-metre and 400-metre distances.

Trevor Berbick, Jamaican-born heavyweight, was the last man to fight Muhammad Ali, winning a 10-round unanimous decision in 1981.

And if you were one of the fortunate few who witnessed the unbridled glee with which the Jamaican bobsled team exuberantly crashed its way down the course at the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics, you’ll understand just a little more about the Jamaican sports spirit. Geoff Johnson is a retired superintendent of schools.