You are absolutely correct and I have been saying this for years. Jamaica has always produced great sprinters, they have been winning global championship medals since the 1940s. With that said; however, prior to 2008, they were somewhere in the mix with Canada and Great Britain, with the U.S. occupying the dominate position as it has almost since the inception of the modern Olympics. What the Jamaicans accomplished in the 2008 Olympics is a statistical anomaly to the nth degree. Most people suspect FloJo was doping based primarily on her performances and how rapidly she improved; however, the Jamaicans in 2008 had about a half dozen athletes who made similar improvements over a similar period of time. What's unique about the year leading up to the 2008 Olympics:
1:) Angel Heredia who was one of the BALCO chemist, he moved to Jamaica in 2007. Although he denies ever living in Jamaica, but at the very least, he made several trips there that year and interesting he traveled under the name Angel Hernandez.
2:) in 2007, several prominent Jamaican athletes violated the whereabouts rule, one of which was Bolt. However, the violations were lossed out because the athletes were located with in the next day or 2 and in Bolt's case, he could not be found supposedly because he lived on a street with no street sign. The WADA agent said it was strange that people in Bolt's neighborhood could direct you to his house. And, btw, a day or 2 is all you need for most drugs to escape detection.
3.) Except for VCB, all of the top Jamaican sprinters basically dropped off of the map from the end of 2007 until the late spring of 2008. They avoided all of the meets with drug testing; they basically ran in-country, the Penn Relays and their national championships. In fact, VCB was ranked number one in the world in the 100m in 2007. VCB was living in the U.S. and went home for the 2008 Jamaican national championships and almost did not make the Olympic team, she was beaten by Kerron Stewart and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, both of whom had never broken 11 seconds. It was determined that leading up to the 2008 Olympics, JAA had done zero (0) OOC testing and in 2009, they were forced by WADA and the IAAF to implement an AD program.
Does any of this mean the Jamaicans are systematically doping, the answer is no; however, since the BP was fully implemented in 2009/10 the Jamaicans and the rest of the sprint world has seen a drop off in performances.
Quotes:
"What are the odds that a tiny, island country suddenly dominates global competition…just because?" - Dan Bernstein
“When people ask me about Bolt, I say he could be the greatest athlete of all time,” Carl Lewis told the Times of London. “But for someone to run 10.03 one year and 9.69 the next, if you don’t question that in a sport that has the reputation it has right now, you’re a fool. Period.” - Carl Lewis