Jamaican, Usain Bolt, fastest man in the world

The balance of power in world athletics has finally shifted. American dominance of the popular sport is well and truly over. Since August 1936 when American Jesse Owens accomplished athletics history by capturing four gold medals (100m, 200m, 4×1 relay and long jump) at the World Championships in Berlin, Germany, the American reign has been absolute and complete. No nation, large or small, resource rich or resource-poor could beat the American sprinters. Their triumphant intervention in the second World War had rendered the United States the new world super power. With no clear rivals except Communist Russia and the entire Soviet bloc, the post war years saw America becoming increasingly accustomed to domination and power and being a top of the world – militaristically, politically, economically, technologically and in terms of industrial and scientific development.

Sport was for America another avenue by which to display its skill and exhibit its superiority. Though there were glimpses of talent in other nations, none had managed to outshine and outperform America in track and field. America’s contingent at world games, including the Olympics, was always the largest, its medal haul the biggest and its place atop the world standings persistently secure. The world naturally basked in America’s glory and stood in awe of the constancy of their achievements. Jesse Owens became the marker of such success and later Carl Lewis, Marion Jones, Gail Devers and Michael Johnson – who helped to further and embed American domination in world athletics. Johnson himself set a world record in the 200m sprint of 19:32 secs, a time so outstanding that it was unsure whether it would ever be beat for a long time. But it has. Jesse Owens’ 1936 achievements – mighty and astounding as they were – remained the historical marker that no one could conquer. That is, until now.

Today, some 86 years later, a young 22 year old called Usain Bolt from the small island nation of Jamaica, has shattered all expectations. Usain Bolt bolted to victory in both the 100m (in world record time of 9.69 secs) and the 200m (19:30 secs) at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, and then breaking his own records in the 100 m (9.58 secs), and 200m (19.19 secs) at the famous Berlin stadium where Jessie Owens gained international prominence. Usain Bolt is now the first man in the history of world athletics to hold both the Olympic and World Championship records for the 100 and 200m simultaneously. Jesse Owen’s marker has not only been equalled. It is unquestionably surpassed. Owen’s 9.4 secs in the 100 yards, notwithstanding.

THE WINDS OF CHANGE FROM 1948 ONWARDS

Jamaica knew this day would one day come. The evidence has been continuously clear. At the London Games in 1948 and later in Helsinki in 1952, three black men from Jamaica – Herb McKinley, George Rhoden and Arthur Wint sprinted into athletic history. Although McKinley captured gold in the 4×4 relays in Helsinki in 1952, it was the persistent silver of second place, and bronze that became the precedent for this nation, especially at the Olympics.

Gold would come for the likes of Veronica Campbell- Brown and Asafa Powell in the contemporary area of sprinting but it was silver and bronze that occupied our cabinet. So embedded had Jamaica’s silver and bronze rush become that the popular Jamaican sprint Queen, Merlene Ottey, became known as the ‘Bronze Queen’. And there is little awe surrounding second place finishers. American domination meant that Jamaica – although present in every final at the world level- and medalling consistently, would never get the recognition it deserved from the global media and sport authorities. This was about to change. The tide had begun to change.

 At the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Jamaican Deon Hemmings hurdled her way to the country’s first gold medal in the 400m. What seemed impossible suddenly became a reality. Her victory would inspire a nation and set a mark for other athletes. Jamaica’s presence on the athletics track could no longer be ignored. Suddenly, it seemed that the black green and gold was everywhere. After Jamaica’s cracker of a performance at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney Australia and later at the 2006 Commonwealth Games also in Sydney, the global media began to pay increased attention to this small Caribbean country inhabited by a mere 2.7 million people, and whose athletes had a rich tradition of sprinting, but for whom the gold rush had eluded for more than fifty years. Jamaica’s successful showing in world athletics had now become obvious and inescapable beyond the track. Many governments, developed and developing, had begun to take notice of this tiny 3rd world nation whose economy was in tatters, where crime mushroomed, whose size was negligible on the world map but whose sheer confidence and skill was rendering it a real competitive force beyond the sporting world. After all, sport was always a measure of a country’s stature in the world. It was therefore only natural that Jamaica’s increasing success on the track would begin to offend some in the political class of highly developed countries.

 WHEN POLITICS TRUMPS SPORTS: NEW ZEALAND DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER SNOBS JAMAICA AFTER COMMONWEALTH VICTORY

 During Jamaica’s dominance at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne (Australia) in 2006, I was a student in New Zealand. In a tribute to the New Zealand athletes in the House of Parliament, then New Zealand’s Deputy Prime Minister, Michael Cullen remarked: “The only country to have done better than New Zealand is Jamaica, and given Jamaica’s crime rate, we would not want to swap places with them”. I could not believe my ears. A Commonwealth Head of State was failing to acknowledge the fortunes of a fellow member of the Commonwealth, choosing instead to undermine Jamaica’s achievement by remarking on the political performance of its government in the area of crime control. Jamaica’s ascendance was no longer about sport; it was now politics through and through.

The Third World ‘other’ was to be snubbed and relegated to consolidate the dominance and superiority of the First World. It was apparently difficult for this highly developed nation to accept that a Third World society – a kind of non-entity in the real world- battered by high crime and limited resources – could have produced such an abundance of talent, and excelled in such a marvellous and fundamental way – to capture world attention, while highly developed societies with robust economies were not achieving the kind of victories to match its status and stature in the world.

WHEN POLITICS TRUMPS SPORT: HILTLER SNOBS JESSE OWENS AT 1936 BERLIN GAMES?

This situation is not insignificant as way back in 1936 at the World Games in Berlin, Adolph Hitler was said to be using the Games to consolidate Germany’s resurgence as a world power. Germany indeed dominated the games with victories (toppeing the medal tally), and Hitler by this time was spreading German Nazism, which elevated the so-called Aryan people as a master race and while positioning people of African ethnicity as inferior. When the African-American Jesse Owens stunned the world by claiming four gold medals at these Berlin games, Hitler is reported to have avoided acknowledging his victories and refused to shake his hands (see Wikipedia, Jesse Owens). In his Memoirs, Inside the Third Reich, written and recollected by war armaments Minister, Albert Speer, it is noted that:

“Each of the German victories and there were a surprising number of these made Hitler happy, but he was highly annoyed by the series of triumphs by the marvellous coloured American runner, Jesse Owens. People whose antecedents came from the jungle were primitive, Hitler said with a shrug; their physiques were stronger than those of civilised whites and hence should be excluded from future games (Wikipedia, Jesse Owens)”.

Although Owens disagreed that he was snubbed by Hitler, instead declaring that he was snubbed by the American political class who failed to send him congratulatory messages, invite him to the White House or bestowed on him any honours – the above incidents are significant. They first speak volumes about the power of politics to intrude into the sporting arena. Secondly, Usain Bolt’s eclipse of various world records embeds Jamaica’s authority as the sprint kingdom and heralds this Caribbean nation’s supremacy in world athletics. At the same time, and even more significantly, it exposed the now weakened, inferior position of its main rival, the United States.

DRUG SCANDALS- FINAL NAIL IN THE COFFIN FOR AMERICAN ATHLETICS

Whereas Jamaica was finally gaining its rightful recognition in world athletics, a sport in which they had been participants for more than 60 years, drug scandals and disgrace was eating away at America’s dominance. Former Olympian, Marion Jones took home 5 medals at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, including gold in the 100m sprint, only to be stripped of these medals when she admitted to using banned steroids. She was without a doubt the female Jessie Owens of her generation. Even so, America still had world class competitors of the likes of Alyson Felix, Jamaican-born Sanya Richards, Muna Lee as well as a long list of powerful male sprinters such as the popular Tyson Gaye, who continued to stamp their class on the sport.

But Gaye’s celebrated squeaky-clean image cannot repair the damage already done. With drugs out of the way, the true champions – Jamaica – had emerged – and they were from a society that was no match for America’s size, political clout or standing in the world. Their track emissaries did not veil their envy and dismay. American sprinter, Michael Johnson, though rendered speechless when Usain Bolt broke his own 100m record in Berlin, refused to acknowledge that Bolt had surpassed Jesse Owens. Johnson had prior to this lauded praise on  Bolt but in this moment still relegated to to second place. Owens is after all an American. It would be politically incorrect to admit that he has been surpassed. Even Jesse Owens may have marvelled at Bolt’s success.

For former American sprint great, Carl Lewis, it was ‘ridiculous’ that Jamaica was capable of taking over from America. In a 2009 article about Jamaica’s sprint victories, he declared:

“Are you kidding me? We’ve [America] dominated and then all of a sudden, one Olympics and these Jamaicans come along and run these crazy times and performances and all of a sudden everyone says now they are the fastest. It’s like everyone just lies down. Really it’s ridiculous. People need to get over it, go to work and stop whining.”

To admit that Bolt had become the greatest sprinter of all times, and to accept Jamaica’s new dominance in sprinting would be to acknowledge that America had finally been conquered and the American athletic reign had well and truly come to an end.

An Early Quaker missionary to Jamaica had observed that “Jamaica is destined to exert an influence upon humanity disproportionate to its territorial extent”. From Bob to Bolt, that influence is now undeniable.

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Dr. Hume Johnson holds a PhD in Political Science & Public Policy from the University of Waikato New Zealand. She teaches Journalism and Communications at James Cook University (Queensland, Australia). She can be reached at humepela@gmail.com