Jamaican Gold

The book on which this report is based is titled ‘Jamaican Gold, Jamaican Sprinters’ edited by Rachel Irving and Vilma Charlton. It was published by ‘University of the West Indies Press’ located in Jamaica in the year 2010. At a cost of one hundred and fifty nine dollars for the soft cover version and consisting of one hundred and forty four pages divided into sixteen chapters, the book gives insight into the history of Jamaican sprinting and attempts 2 unravel some of the questions concerning sprinting in this Caribbean country.

The book provides an overview of available data on the genetics, biomechanics, physical factors and any other myths and hypotheses surrounding Jamaican sprinting prowess. Jamaican Gold looks at the evolution of sprinting in Jamaica, from the country winning its first Olympic gold medal at the 1948 Olympics in London to having collected six gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and in the process smashing world records. Divided into sections, the book looks at the science of Jamaica’s sprinting ability, the lives of some Jamaican sprinters, the history of Jamaican sprinting, and the culture that affects their sprinting and infamous doping issues.

Its main theme is centered on the question “Why are Jamaican sprinters so fast?” The first section of the book attempts to answer these questions citing genetics, the local regions in which Jamaicans are brought up in and the ancestry of Jamaicans as reasons for their success in sprinting. Based on university research, the book provides a compelling argument on the topic of genetics in sprinting. It reasons that Jamaicans being from West African ancestry were built for the purpose of sprinting. The book goes on to provide evidence of this and also cites genetic formulae. Another reason the book brings to the forefront is that there are regions in Jamaica, namely Trelawny and the Cockpit region, where the terrain and culture nurture youngsters into top class sprinters. The editors then...