Island the sprinting culture

[Sir X]

Had a discussion with an american Jamaican at work and he said americans will never understand Jamaican sprinting culture, he remarked when he vacationed in Jamaican and his grandmother would send him to the shop , he would always race to the shop and where ever to run errands, he couldnt understand why they ran to everywhere .

I thought about this and I have recollections of same , I even remeber challenging my peers in my area and schools for races .I wonder if its a Jamaican thing or other cultures have this trait.


Is this a product of the champs culture where parents prepped their kids for school,prep,primary and high school champs......I remembered the elders saying , " unnuh guh outside and run up and down "

Is it cultural and has nothing to do with champs , champs is just the factory to produce an end result of the sprinting culture?

[Islandman]

Interesting, I never thought of it that way. Yes my friends and I used to often be racing on the road as children.Sometimes we would run "laps" around the neighbourhood too. I guess I just assumed that was standard behaviour.

Often times you have two or more things creating a positive or negative feedback loop and over time it becomes difficult to say what came first.

I still would want to think that children racing all the time is not that specific to Jamaica though. Champs along with the time and the resources that go into it is definitely unique. That's the secret sauce so to speak.

[Karl]

The few US "sports days" I have attended at US schools seem not to be about track and field. Our JA "sports day"...prep, primary, high schools and colleges is all about track and field. As with so many things it would appear we in JA are 'brainwashed' to 'love' track and field'.

As Sanya Richards-Ross said on the NBC feed, we having been running (relays and passing the baton) all our lives. As she told it in that commentary by the time she was 9 years old in JA passing the stick was 'second nature'. On our ladies and men relay teams she said that we could pass and get around the baton in our sleep.

btw - Our ladies were blown away in the 4 x 100M only because the USA were much more competent on the changes...and it was a huge USA advantage on our 2nd and last changes. On each of those changes the USA runners increased their lead by huge margins. Our ladies ran well but all our changes were 'slow'. On our 1st the USA got a jump on each of the other 2 there was greater and greater advantage/increase margins to the USA.

We may be able to pass and receive the stick in our sleep...but only repeat practice allows for the baton to be exchanged at optimum speed. Di hout goin runna a trot or going out at less that top speed and the incoming runner having to delay exchange or running up on the outgoing runner is never going to cut it when your opponents are world class runners who get that exchange going whereon baton speed is kept up. We were found wanting on baton exchanges...bad, bad. Our men were not all that on baton exchanges either...but they combined out-gunned the USA on leg speed and thus our men deficiencies on exchanges were masked.

[Peter R]

True Karl. Sports day elsewhere includes things like egg and spoon race, clothing race etc... It was not until an adult (or late teens) I realized our sports day was a track and field meet.

With respect to the baton changes, the Japanese showed how to do it efficiently. You notice they change baton down low? and not p high...I'm wondering if that isn't more efficient?!

[Islandman]

They clearly must be doing something that the speedsters are not doing.

If you think about it though, we are really dealing in tenths of a second, the difference between an efficient pass and a poor pass or a fumble is enough to make up for the difference between a 9.9 leg and a 10.1 leg.

[Islandman]

I agree with this analysis Karl, what it does is give the US credit for what they did.

To me , saying that you only lost a relay because of a bad pass or only lost a hurdles race because you hit one of the hurdles is not a sound argument. That's the objective of those races! It is a combination of speed and technique so if your technique is less than par, well then you are less than par and the victor was better than you. It's not like having an injury or being pushed during a race , that is an external factor. Passing a baton or clearing a hurdle is the point of the race itself. It's the equivalent of saying you only lost a 100m race because you ran too slow.

[Peter R]

I agree with this analysis Karl, what it does is give the US credit for what they did.

To me , saying that you only lost a relay because of a bad pass or only lost a hurdles race because you hit one of the hurdles is not a sound argument. That's the objective of those races! It is a combination of speed and technique so if your technique is less than par, well then you are less than par and the victor was better than you. It's not like having an injury or being pushed during a race , that is an external factor. Passing a baton or clearing a hurdle is the point of the race itself.

At the risk of going around in circles... IMO, it's not about any "argument" but rather a simple analysis of why you didn't do better. So when people say: "we lost because we didn't have a good exchange", I don't have a problem with that. You need to identify why you did (poorly) and where to improve. Similarly, the winners can say: "we won because we executed perfectly", to understand what they did well and what they need to continue doing.

If people interpret that (the loser's lament) as a diss to the winner, which it can also be, because the loser (their supporters) don't want to acknowledge a superior adversary on the day, they have to accept that not everyone will be gracious in losing. The winner just has to flash dem medal and any "argument" done!

Of course, you are correct, that all else being equal (if that's possible) the person who executes the technical aspects of the race (crossing hurdles or changing batons) will certainly carry the day.

[Islandman]

Agreed, the "what could I have done better" analysis is totally legit and should be done. It's the social media comments by Jamaicans saying we "should not" have lost but we had a bad change. That's is the mindset I have a problem with. Yes we absolutely SHOULD have lost, because we had a bad change.

[Willi]

We also lost because ET did NOT destroy Felix on the backstretch and Gardner dusted VCB cleanly on the curve. Shelly actually cut the gap on anchor.

[Islandman]

Willi do you think if Shelly and Elaine switched legs it would have made a difference? Some people are arguing that but it is one of those things that is easy to say after the fact when you already know the result.

[Peter R]

Did we have the right team? or the correct matchups? I would have like to see the two fastest run 3&4 i.e. ET and SAFP...but I'm not a track man so, just an opinion based on insufficient knowledge.

[Willi]

We were short a leg on that relay...

Who was that 3rd leg, certainly NOT the VCB we all know. She was owned...

[Willi]

SAPF in pain, so no start and no curve.

Shelly actually ran a great anchor...

[Gamma]

She did