How did Jamaica go from 11 medals last year to only 4 this year?

Too much testing an less doping that's why.

I am actually starting to believe people on Letsrun.com are actually sick.

Yams aren't as good as 2008-2009 seasons.

YG wrote:

I am actually starting to believe people on Letsrun.com are actually sick.

The Jamaicans are the ones looking sick and in need of medication. I'm not sure why you think we're sick.

It basically comes dowm to Elaine Thompson and Usain Bolt underperforming since they were involved in 70% of their medal count last year.

Their only other gold individual gold medallist in London, Omar McLeod, showed up.

Tough question asker wrote:

Something is... missing with Jamaica this year. I don't know what it is.

It is simple!

I'll compare Jamaica to Kenya to drive my point home.

As for Jamaica, it is SIMPLE!

Jamaica is a one man country and a one woman country. Wow! I sound like Yellowman.

Jamaica is a two people country.

FIrst, we had Usain Bolt and Shelley Anne Fraser.

They'd win the 100m, the 200m and then anchor their respective teams to the 4x100m relay.

Granted, those are six gold medals.

Exit Shelley Anne, enter Elaine Thompson.

The script was the same but then, something happened. In London, she lost badly, then, quit the 200m!

Even when the US women beat Jamaica on the 4x100, Jamaica still took home about four gold medals minimum!

Even when the US won the 200m women, Jamaica still took hom e about 4 medals. They also won the women's 400m hurdles once......I think in Berlin.

Let's talk about Kenya.

Kenya wins medals with different people such that even without our big guys, medals still come in.

Kemboi is gone but we have Kipruto.

Asbel is ...........( I have no idea) but we now have Manangoi and Timothy Cheruiyot.

Rudisha is off but Kipyegon won us a medal despite his being 18 or 19!

We have several people who can win the marathons.

Vivian left and now, Obiri has stepped up.

I was also very impressed by Agnes Tirop and her Bronze. She seems to have good speed for the 10k!

Now, with Bolt retired (although he did run the 100m and the 200m), Jamaica lost all three men's medals.

No one stepped up. Mcleod is the only guy who seems to have it together.

Tokyo 2020 will be disastrous to the Jamaicans.

The US will sweep the men's sprints and the relay (if they execute it correctly).

Jamaica's run is over and as is oft' said, every good thing must come to an end.

NativeSon nails it. Also, Ethiopia has a similar problem of over reliance on a couple of stars, though not to the extent of Jamaica.

I used to get a little irritated by journalists constantly referring to athletes as "the Kenyans" instead of their actual names. Then I realised the sheer number of newbies every year make it difficult to keep up.

Dude, you're too funny. Creating two accounts so you can congratulate yourself. The pattern holds true all the time.

So all these Jamaicans have broken 10.00 in the last 8 years and because Bolt retires they suddenly have a depth problem?

Usain Bolt

Yohan Blake

Asafa Powell

Nesta Carter

Steve Mullings

Michael Frater

Nickel Ashemeade

Kerman Bailey-Cole

Kermely Brown

Andrew Fisher

Mario Forsythe

Senoj Givans

Odean Skeen

Lerone Clarke

Omar McLeod

Julian Forte

**I may have missed someone.

Too many blood clots.

JRinaldi wrote:

So all these Jamaicans have broken 10.00 in the last 8 years and because Bolt retires they suddenly have a depth problem?

Usain Bolt

Yohan Blake

Asafa Powell

Nesta Carter

Steve Mullings

Michael Frater

Nickel Ashemeade

Kerman Bailey-Cole

Kermely Brown

Andrew Fisher

Mario Forsythe

Senoj Givans

Odean Skeen

Lerone Clarke

Omar McLeod

Julian Forte

**I may have missed someone.

There is a difference between breaking 10 and having "depth".

Most sprinters in your list have only broken 10, in meetings, once or a couple of times under perfect conditions. Four Jamaicans ran sub 10 this year, which is probably more than any other country not called the US.

However, only a very handful of their sprinter have been consistent in international competitions.

Asafa Powell broke 10"00, 100 times (twice as much as Bolt) yet has only ever won one single Bronze medal in 15 years

WADA took over the free ride and no testing JADA.

I said in a tread about a 3 weeks ago that "Jamaica will not win a single gold medal". That was my exact statement and I asked for that post to be held onto. Although I didn't specify it, but I just talking about sprinting. I felt McLeod was the favorite in the hurdles. To those of you who constantly slam drug testing, it does work. The AD system is far from perfect and certainty easy to beat at competitions, but OOC testing when done frequently and randomly, does work fairly well.

The IAAF/WADA has not published any details, but what I heard is they intervened and provided assistance to JADA in testing Jamaican athletes leading up to the WCs. I have not heard of any Jamaican athletes testing positive, but knowing there is going to be independence testing is a deterrent. Supposedly, the IAAF/WADA provided some AD assistance to Botswana as well leading up to the WCsl. The ADPs in most 3rd world countries is pretty much a joke. Track & field athletes are national heroes in these countries and the local federations are simply are not going to turn them in. I recall in 2012 or 2013, Dr. Shirley, the former director of the Jamaican ADP simply stating Jamaica was not testing it's athletes and she was called a traitor and had to go into hiding. Btw, Dr. Shirley never said Jamaican athletes were doping, she simple stated they weren't being tested. Can you imagine what it was be like if Dr. Shirley, or a local Kenyan, Ethiopian or Botswanan federation actually busted a high profile athlete. When one of these 3rd world high profile athletes are busted, it is always done so by independent testing, whereas in the U.S., all of our dopers were caught by USADA.

I am not implicitly stating AD in the U.S. is perfect and/or that athletes of any of the aforementioned counties were/are doping...you have to draw your own conclusions.

Yeah, Kenya was really impressive at WCs this year. Would you say T&F/athletics is the biggest sport in your country, or is football?

Plus you guys have that good javelin-thrower, although I don't think he medalled at WCs this year.

TrackCoach wrote:

... Dr. Shirley never said Jamaican athletes were doping, she simple stated they weren't being tested." .

Exacto! And if the athletes weren't being tested there is the likelihood they were juicing at one point or another. One got popped, and all the sudden the rest begin to perform like "normal" elite athletes should. Coincidence? Nope.

Use my sport cycling as example. Frank and Andy Schleck. Both men on the top of their game placing top 3 in the Tour. Frank got popped all the sudden Andy became an average cyclist. Frank comes back from serving his suspension, performs as an average cyclist. Coincidence? Nope.

Alberto Contador. Multi-Grand Tour winner, a menace on the climbs. Got popped, comes from suspension, not even a shadow of what he used to be. Coincidence? Repeat with me...NOPE!

Feel free to draw you own conclusions or keep living under a rock.

Pretty conclusive, something was going on and now they are struggling. The simple theory is the more you test them the worse they are. Bad Wigins had an interesting point recently, they should have built testing around something more stable with longer detection like hair. If you could test someone every 3 months for what they have done over the last 4-6 months you will have a clean sport.

El Keniano wrote:

NativeSon nails it. Also, Ethiopia has a similar problem of over reliance on a couple of stars, though not to the extent of Jamaica.

I used to get a little irritated by journalists constantly referring to athletes as "the Kenyans" instead of their actual names. Then I realised the sheer number of newbies every year make it difficult to keep up.

Thats one the reasons we in the west find the african dominance in distance running so boring.

- They are mostly pretty neutral and boring athletes, rarely showing raw and fun excitement over a win

- They come and go, someone is good a few years then fades off (perhaps he wasnt really 17 when he went pro after all..) and someone new come in. How to seperate them? They are all so bland. Not on social media, all shaven heads etc.

Serious question, why doesn't more kenyans take advantage of the things I list above? It would be so easy for someone to stand out. I liked manangois mustache, a welcome change.

Remember the black guy doing 3000mh a few years back with a white, japanese looking headband? Often smiling a lot and doing some sort of show at the start? He wasn't good and it wasnt much, but he stood out.

The laboratory aspect of the current testing is pretty inexpensive, it's very similar to a pre employment drug test. I think it's only about a $50 per test, obviously this does not include the operational cost such as the travel, lodging, salaries of the testers per se and the human analysis of the results when needed. Perhaps I should not say inexpensive when you consider the thousands of tests. Blood is more expensive, partially because a person qualified to collect urine in not necessarily qualified to draw blood. Blood is more accurate and more importantly, traces of dope show up in blood much longer than urine. In fact, if an athlete is taking small dosages of dope, it's only detectable beyond the acceptable threshold for less than a day. This means an athlete can take a small amount of dope just before they go to bed and may not test positive the following day using a urine analysis. I think the dope would be detectable in blood for a couple of days. 3rd world countries rarely if ever do OOC blood testing. The most hated man in track & field is probably the most verifiably clean athlete; USA's Justin Gatlin (one athlete) has had more blood tests over the last decade than the entire Jamaican pool of registered IAAF athletes. (A fact!)

I think dope is detectable in hair for months using a basic test and depending on how exhaustive the testing process is, dope can be detected for many years. In fact, I think dope is detectable for even decades with extreme testing. The FBI has exhumed bodies and done extreme chromatography testing decades after a person has died. Hair is much more expensive to test than blood because it requires a chromatography process to break down solid materials into chemical compounds. Also, the standard drug testing labs don't have the expertise or equipment to do chromatography. To the best of my knowledge, only universities, chem/pharma companies federal law enforcement have chromatography equipment. Btw, I am not talking about low grade test for things that are absolutely foreign to human biology like THC or cocaine for example, anabolic steroids and blood doping are more difficult to detect in a way that can be proved in court to have not occurred naturally. - Long story short, ADPs don't do hair testing because it's too expensive.

Pretty sure I am only about 90% correct, any experts out there feel free to clarify and/or correct.