bolt's times alone aren't suspicious, but the surge in Jamaica's dominance raises huge question marks

is it possible that in Jamaica track (sprinting) is much more popular, so even though they are a smaller nation it is a sport the top athletes take seriously growing up? Instead of being drawn to football, these kids focus on sprinting throughout their adolescence and get to be like Bolt where having an absurd natural talent, combined with effective training from an early age (remember him on the cover of track and field news when he was either 14 or 16?) and then finally maturing in his early 20s as 6'4" or whatever he is, it just all adds up to the results we are seeing.

i'm fine with most of that, except there seemed to be a surge in performance across the board all at once - that is what makes it particularly unusual

zefron wrote:

is it possible that in Jamaica track (sprinting) is much more popular, so even though they are a smaller nation it is a sport the top athletes take seriously growing up? Instead of being drawn to football, these kids focus on sprinting throughout their adolescence and get to be like Bolt where having an absurd natural talent, combined with effective training from an early age (remember him on the cover of track and field news when he was either 14 or 16?) and then finally maturing in his early 20s as 6'4" or whatever he is, it just all adds up to the results we are seeing.

getreal wrote:

I can believe bolt in isolation, there are bound to be outliers

but an entire country of just 2.8m people all of a sudden dominating every men's AND women's sprint event, all at the exact same time - something is rotten in denmark

yes they are mostly of west african descent but other countries also have many sprinters of west african descent... statistically their rise in dominance all at once seems statistically unlikely.

Jamaica has always been right under the USA in sprint dominance. Even some of the USA's (and other countries) are Jamaican or of Jamaican descent. When the USA was forced to stop doping, it leveled the playing field.

Hence, the rise of Jamaican sprint dominance is inversly proportional to the demise of USA's chemical advantage.

I remember Victor Conte actually predicting this during an interview with a BBC reporter. Nowadays...I don't know what to believe anymore to be honest.

I can believe the U.S. doped or is doping, of course.But your argument would suggest the U.S. slowed down relative to everyone else... that didn't happen. Jamaica sped up relative to EVERY other country

9.58_InnaYuhBombo wrote:

Jamaica has always been right under the USA in sprint dominance. Even some of the USA's (and other countries) are Jamaican or of Jamaican descent. When the USA was forced to stop doping, it leveled the playing field.

getreal wrote:

I can believe the U.S. doped or is doping, of course.

But your argument would suggest the U.S. slowed down relative to everyone else... that didn't happen. Jamaica sped up relative to EVERY other country

9.58_InnaYuhBombo wrote:

Jamaica has always been right under the USA in sprint dominance. Even some of the USA's (and other countries) are Jamaican or of Jamaican descent. When the USA was forced to stop doping, it leveled the playing field.

Jamaica was always dominating right under the USA and beating out other countries. Silver and bronze just don't stick in the memory as much. Study your history. Add the fact that they now have Usain Bolt and Asafa...those are huge factors. If the USA came with their best PEDs right now, they still couldn't beat Usain. With regards to the women, the USA's inability to dope is definately a factor. Sanya Richards, who won Gold for USA tried out for Jamaica's team but was rejected because she wanted automatic induction. Had she made the team, that would have made it even more of a sweep.

Jamaicans have always come to Penn Relays and in general have produced great youth runners. The problem I think was with overall development.

What would happen to all of the great HS US sprinters if they didn't have the collegiate program?

Alan