Why are Jamaicans so fast? [View all]

[jberryhill]

This article explains that, contrary to armchair anthropologists, the answer is a more interesting story....

https://www.google.com/amp/mobile.nytimes.com/2016/08/14/opinion/sunday/the-secret-of-jamaicas-runners.amp.html

How do Jamaicans do it? It’s not because of genetics, as some claim. A vast majority of Jamaicans’ ancestors are from West Africa, which has relatively few outstanding sprinters. Nor can genetics explain why Jamaicans outperform other blacks in the Americas, especially in Brazil, which has 36 times as many of them.

Ask a Jamaican like me (I was born and raised there), and we’ll give you a very different answer: Champs. Officially called the Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association Boys and Girls Athletics Championship, Champs is an annual competition attended by 30,000 wildly enthusiastic fans. Jamaica is perhaps the only country in the world where a track and field meet is the premier sporting event.

But it’s not just Champs. The competition is one part of a broader framework — track and field is huge at every educational level, with periodic regional meets drawing athletes of all ages from the most remote rural areas. So the real question is, why is Jamaica nuts for track?

...

The answer is complex and incomplete. But it might lie in a deeper truth about the island. Political and economic successes are often top-down, relying on leadership that adapts and manages appropriate institutions that also benefit the non-elite. But things like health reform and sports success — and the reggae industry, for that matter — are largely bottom-up. Jamaica is yet to acquire the leadership for national development it deserves. But it has no lack of talent, energy and self-reliance — qualities as evident in health statistics as they are on the track.