SAINT-DENIS, France (AP) — The midpoint of the Olympic track meet used to be time for Jamaican sprint stars — Usain Bolt, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and all the rest — to catch their breath, recover from their victory parties, then start gearing up for more.
This year in Paris, there hasn’t been much to celebrate, and there’s a sense that it could be years, not days, until the good times start rolling again for the Caribbean nation known for sun, sand and sprints.
After Tuesday, which marked the halfway point of the action at the Stade de France, Kishane Thompson’s silver in the 100 meters was the only medal the Jamaican team had won on the track.
And in a twist hardly anyone on the island could have ever imagined, Jamaica actually had more medals from field events (two) than from sprinting.
“I know the world is used to Jamaica winning, and Jamaica always celebrating,” said Asafa Powell, the Jamaican legend who held or shared the 100-meter world record for nearly three years before Bolt broke it when he surged onto the scene in 2008. “But believe me, it’s going to happen again.”
It almost happened this time. Thompson’s quest to become Jamaica’s next Olympic male sprint champ came a scant .005 seconds short.
The Jamaican sprinting women have dealt with injuries
For the women’s program, the problem has simply been getting a contender to the starting line.
Elaine Thompson-Herah, Shericka Jackson and Fraser-Pryce, all in their 30s, all pulled out of their Olympic sprints with injuries. They made up the entire 100-meter podium in Tokyo in 2021.
The team that won 15 of the 24 Olympic medals in the women’s 100 and 200 between 2008 and 2021 will go home with none this year. It will mark the first time since 1976 the country hasn’t won a women’s medal in either of those events.
“I think people appreciate us more when they see a down period like this,” said Powell, who is in town hanging at the PUMA house, which used to be party central for Jamaica at the Olympics.
The pieces started crumbling on June 9, when Thompson-Herah, the two-time defending champion at 100 and 200 meters, hurt her Achilles at a meet in New York.
Exactly a month later, Jackson, the second-fastest woman of all time at 200 meters, pulled up lame in a race in Hungary. She arrived in Paris, only to pull out of the 100 first, then the 200. Even had she raced, there were questions as to what kind of impact she would have had in the 200 given her pedestrian 22.29-second run at Olympic trials.
It left 37-year-old Fraser-Pryce as the only healthy member left from the group. But that ended Saturday when, shortly before the 100 semifinals, s he pulled out with an undisclosed injury, saying on social media it was “difficult for me to describe the depth of my disappointment.”
Who are the next stars for Jamaican track?
Now, track fans await the lineup for Thursday’s 4×100 relays.
Have the old guard healed enough to compete?
Or will the world see the likes of Tia Clayton, 19, who finished seventh in the 100 final; Shashalee Forbes, 28, who finished sixth in the 100 semifinal; and Niesha Burgher, 21, who came in fifth in the 200-meter semifinal?
“It’s a very young team,” said Lanae Tava-Thomas, another relay candidate, who is 23 and finished fifth in the 200-meter semifinal. “We definitely have time to develop. It’s going to be a very strong team when we get actually fully developed.”
Jamaica has a history of finding new sprinters
History shows there is hope for Jamaica.
There was a time when Merlene Ottey (three silver, six bronze medals over six Olympics with Jamaica) seemed irreplaceable. Then along came Veronica Campbell-Brown, who won eight Olympic medals, including three golds, over a stretch that covered 2004-16.
In the weeks before the 2008 Beijing Games, vitriol flew at the then-21-year-old newcomer, who then went by Shelly-Ann Fraser, from those who believed the spot she captured in the 100 was depriving Jamaica and “VCB” a sure medal.
Fraser won gold that year and again in 2012. She won eight medals and became one of Jamaica’s all-time greats over the span of four Olympics before this year.
If the next Fraser is out there, she hasn’t arrived yet, though Thompson’s relatively quick emergence on the men’s side — he was a virtual unknown outside the island before June — shows how fast things can change.
Even Usain Bolt started slowly at his first Olympics
Remember this: Four years before he became an international celebrity, Bolt made his Olympic debut in the 200 meters in Athens. He went out quietly in the first round.
Four years later, though, the 6-foot-5 force of nature turned the Olympic track into his own personal stage — 9-point-something seconds of running followed by a reggae-filled, dance-fest and capped off by his iconic bow-and-arrow victory pose.
At times during this Olympic track meet, it has felt like more than eight years have passed since Bolt reigned supreme. But Powell remains hopeful.
“We will see Jamaica celebrating again,” he said. “Jamaicans have the best celebration so the world wants to see it.”
