Jamaican Athletics Team still one of the best in the world

Jamaica stamped it’s class as one of the top nations in Athletics in the world at the 2007 World Championships in Osaka Japan. The Jamaica team walked away with 10 medals in the 9 day Championships; 1 Gold, 6 Silver and 3 Bronze medals, a decent improvement over our 8 Medals in Helsinki in 2005 and double our 5 medals from France in 2003. The statistic that is more important to me though is the points table, where Jamaica is placed 4th, that’s the result I am most proud of. Another interesting bit on information is that this wasn’t Jamaica’s strongest team, as a couple of our top athletes such as Sherone Simpson, Bridget Foster-Hylton and Michael Frater all came down with injuries just before the championships.

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Who would have thought that this tiny island nation would have risen to such great heights in athletics when we made our international debut in 1948 when Author Wint won Jamaica’s first gold medal at the 1948 London Olympics in the 400m, and a silver medal in the 800m.

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My favourite Jamaican athlete at this meet was Maurice Smith who just edged out Veronica Campbell’s 100m women’s gold, before this meet I knew nothing at all about this youngster, but out of nowhere he won a silver medal in the decathlon of all events smashing the national record in the process. Other than Asafa Powell giving up a silver medal or photo finish in the 100m for men I am very satisfied with our team. Now I anxiously wait for the next big athletics events, The Beijing Olympics next year and then the 2009 World Championships in Berlin!

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Images sourced from the Osaka 2007 gallery of the IAAF website.

6 thoughts on “Jamaican Athletics Team still one of the best in the world

  1. Wonderful! They all did an awesome job :o) Looking forward to those next big athletics events also :o) Can’t wait!

  2. It seems dark skinned people have superior genes in athletic abilities because sports and world championships are dominated by them.

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