There’s a narrative circulating in global athletics that “the world has caught up to Jamaica.” It’s the kind of lazy commentary that follows when medals dry up and dynasties look like they’re ending. But let’s be honest: the world hasn’t caught up. Jamaica has simply fallen back.
For nearly two decades, Jamaica reigned as the sprint capital of the world, producing an assembly line of once-in-a-lifetime athletes who not only won but redefined what greatness looked like. That dominance wasn’t a fluke—it was forged in Melbourne in 2006, where the island won 10 gold medals at the Commonwealth Games. Asafa Powell, Omar Brown, Maurice Wignall, Sherone Simpson, Sherri-Ann Brooks, Brigette Foster, Trecia-Kay Smith—the names read like the cast of a blockbuster. Jamaica swept sprints and relays and laid the groundwork for a golden era.
By 2008 in Beijing, that groundwork became a full-blown sprint revolution. Usain Bolt electrified the world with his jaw-dropping world records in the 100m and 200m, capped off with a 4x100m relay gold. Shelly-Ann Fraser—then a virtual unknown—claimed gold in the women’s 100m, leading a Jamaican 1-2-2 finish. Veronica Campbell-Brown defended her 200m title. Melaine Walker claimed the 400m hurdles. The sprints belonged to Jamaica.
From there, it was a decade of unprecedented dominance. Bolt would go on to become the fastest man in history with his 9.58 over 100m and 19.19 in the 200m. And let’s not forget: Yohan Blake ran 9.69 and 19.26, making him the second-fastest man of all time in both events. Asafa Powell’s 9.72 once sat third on the all-time list. And the men’s 4x100m relay team set a world record of 36.84 seconds in London in 2012—a mark that 13 years later, still hasn’t been approached, let alone broken.
But flash forward to 2025 and things look markedly different. Jamaica’s performance at the Paris Olympics in 2024 was sobering: one gold medal—earned not on the track, but in the men’s discus by Roje Stona. It was the first time in nearly two decades that Jamaica walked away from a global championship without a sprint title. For a country built on speed, that hurt.
Then came the World Relays. Once a playground for Jamaican baton dominance, the team managed to qualify just one relay—the women’s 4x100m—for the World Championships in Tokyo later this year. One. That’s a far cry from the days when Jamaica could pencil in medals from the 4x100m and 4x400m relays before the gun went off.
And yet, we’re told that “the world has caught up.”
But has it? Are we seeing athletes running 9.6s or 9.5s like Bolt? 9.7s like Powell? Or 19.2s like Blake? Not even close. Outside of Sha’Carri Richardson, the women’s sprint scene isn’t teeming with 10.6s or 10.7s like Fraser-Pryce and Elaine Thompson-Herah were producing routinely. If anything, the world hasn’t sped up—it’s that Jamaica isn’t sprinting away from the competition anymore.
That’s the key distinction. It’s not that the global standard has surged forward. It’s that Jamaica has, for the time being, slipped back into the pack.
Of course, there is talent—lots of it. Kishane Thompson, Oblique Seville, Ackeem Blake. But while they flash brilliance, they have yet to convert it into consistent dominance. Injuries, inconsistency, or just inexperience have kept them from replicating the runaway success of the Bolt-Blake-Powell era. On the women’s side, Brianna Lyston’s potential has been blunted by recurring hamstring issues. The Clayton twins, Alana Reid, Krystal Sloley—promising, yes, but not yet producing global medals or world-leading times.
The problem isn’t a lack of talent. The conveyor belt is still turning. What’s missing—for now—is the conversion of talent into medals and history-making moments. That takes time, resources, health, and a little bit of luck. Jamaica’s last generation had all of it converge at once. We’re now in a rebuilding phase, and rebuilding isn’t regression—it’s recalibration.
And here’s the honest truth: we may never again see an era quite like that one. Bolt, Fraser-Pryce, Blake, Thompson-Herah—they set standards that may be generational, if not once-in-a-century. That dominance spoiled us. It created expectations so high that anything short of world records feels like failure. But more than spoiling us, it showed us what’s possible. It gave an entire nation—an entire world—a glimpse of what can happen when raw talent, fierce ambition, and national pride collide at just the right moment.
So no, the world hasn’t caught up. The world has waited. Now it’s up to Jamaica to remind them why they ever had to chase in the first place.
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