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Champs of the world! The national obession that is Jamaica's
Champs of the world
The national obession that is Jamaica's Boys and Girls Athletics Championships
Anna Kessel
The Observer, Sunday 5 April 2009
Talent unearthed at The National Championships has cemented Jamaica's status as a top athletics nation. Photograph: Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters
In Jamaica there is only one event that grips the nation like the Olympic Games or World Championships – the national Boys and Girls Athletics Championships. To the rest of the world "Champs" may sound like a glorified school sports day, but to Jamaicans it is the highlight of the year, with crowds of 30,000 people gathering from across the island to watch over 100 schools battle it out for title of "King" or "Queen".
It is an event with 100 years of history – older even than our own national schools championships by 15 years – but it is only since the advent of Usain Bolt and his achievements in Beijing last summer that the rest of the world has begun to sit up and take notice.
As the four-day competition got underway last week its extraordinary hold over the island is immediately apparent. Everyone from hotel porters to fruit sellers in and around Kingston discuss which teenage stars to look out for. Bars and restaurants set up TV screens to watch the proceedings as the event is broadcast live from the National Stadium, with network channel CVMTV estimating around 1.2m viewers – from a population of 2.8m. Detailed reports dominate the front pages of the island's newspapers, with huge colour photographs hailing the nation's freshest crop of track and field stars.
It is surreal, listening to people on the street debate the merits of 15-year-old sprinters. Everyone has an opinion on who will be the next Bolt or Shelly-Ann Fraser. In the national stadium, supporters of each high school demonstrate their loyalties, screaming for their favourites. Dressed in team colours – the supporters in the purple and white of Kingston College taking up a whole stand to themselves – they bang drums and enjoy soup and roast corn, or jerk chicken wrapped in tin foil. As darkness falls, groups of school kids making their way home take up sticks; there are often violent clashes on the streets outside the stadium. This is no token support, loyalty to high schools goes back generations through a family. Outside the perimeter fence one supporter stands with a gun tucked into his belt. "Y'alright?" he says with a grin.
Every Jamaican athlete worth their salt began at Champs – from Don Quarrie to Bolt himself – and each year the alumni return to watch the next generation. All of them credit the competition as the defining experience in their journey to success. There was even a story going around the island that Asafa Powell lacked mental toughness in competition because he did not compete enough at Champs as a kid. Surely there could not be any truth in it?
"Yeah. I think so, definitely," says Bolt, who brought the house down, aged 16, at the 2003 Champs with a series of brilliant runs that culminated in a record-breaking 200m/400m double in 20.23sec and 45.30sec respectively. "Asafa only did Champs one year and he false started. It's the biggest thing us athletes look forward to every year – I still go every year – it's like the World Championships or the Olympics. It's very competitive – especially the relays – the atmosphere changes completely when the relays start. It prepares you… if you're not strong mentally, you'll crack."
British high jumper Germaine Mason, who grew up in Jamaica and holds the Champs under-16 high jump record, agrees. "The first time I competed I was 13 and really nervous. There were 30,000 people screaming and cheering, and I was shy to look in the stands, I had my head down. But the more I competed the more I got used to it. When I go to a major championships now I use that same method I used then to deal with the pressure."
Mason says that before winning his silver medal in Beijing, an injury put doubt in his mind about his ability to compete. "I had forgotten all about how to approach things, but I thought, 'I need to go back to my high-school days'. You just apply all that you learned from a young age.
"My record is still standing, 2.09, it's been 10 years and every year I go there to watch and see if anyone breaks it. Champs is the biggest thing in track and field here, bigger than the [senior] national championships. It's a traditional thing going way back, my dad did it, everyone's dad did it, and the rivalries go way back depending on what school your family went to."
Established in 1910, Champs are the bedrock of Jamaica's commitment to athletics success. The country eats, sleeps and breathes the sport, with even primary school children competing at the national stadium in the "Preps". Over 3,500 kids now compete annually at Champs, but the country's athletics infrastructure goes beyond annual events. Former Prime Minister Michael Manley – close friends with Fidel Castro – established a legacy when, receiving a grant from Cuba, he set up the GC Foster College in 1978, a higher education institution whose sole aim was to produce sports coaches for Jamaica.
That investment has reaped rewards. "We now have an athletics coach in every school, college and kindergarten in the country," explains Neville McCook, Council member of the IAAF and Secretary General of the Jamaica Olympic Association.
Unlike in the UK, where schools competitions struggle for finance – although a new three-year sponsorship deal with Aviva has kept the event alive up to 2012 – Champs has so much sponsorship money there are leftover funds to help pay for other sports such as hockey and basketball.
"It costs $22m Jamaican [£174,000] to put on Champs each year," says McCook, "which is paid for by our main sponsor, but we also have other sponsors and we get royalties from the broadcasts. That money also assists the colleges in preparing for Champs – which they do from June until March – the old boys association also pay a lot." Like every other alumni on the island and abroad, McCook is expected to dig into his own pocket to help fund future stars. McCook typically sponsors five athletes a year to help pay for, among other costs, medical bills and dental care. "One chapter in New York donated about $20,000 [£13,500], and three years ago our chapter in Miami put up a large sum to put up a new schools canteen."
Jamaicans say it is no surprise that their small island won an unprecedented 11 Olympic medals on the track last summer. While some prominent voices in the media questioned such prolific success, Jamaicans pointed to their investment – and results – at all age groups in recent years. While the rest of the world are fixated on the achievements of Bolt and his three gold medals and three world records in Beijing, Jamaica is already looking ahead to a "second tier" of sprinters. Their excitement is justified.
Last year Jazeel Murphy, aged 15, ran 100m in 10.42sec. Compare that time to Mark Lewis Francis's English schools record of 10.93sec – also aged 15 – and you begin to understand the depth of talent Jamaica has waiting in the wings. Dexter Lee, the current world junior champion over 100m, last night won the senior boys' race in 10.35 seconds, and there are others, such as Yohan Blake, 19, – a former Champs record holder – who now trains with Bolt and claims to be running under 10 seconds in practice.
Such is the reputation of these youngsters that agents and scouts travel from the US to watch what they describe as the world's best talent. Claude Bryan, agent for reigning 100m and 200m Olympic champion Veronica Campbell Brown, says the event is unique.
"Nowhere else in the world will you see 30,000 people cheering on high schoolers. This is the place to be. You've got scouts here, shoe companies here, university coaches here, this is the market place to be at. It's very competitive." Bryan says he doesn't go to other schools events in the US or Europe, "No, they're boring. For me there are only three track and field events I wouldn't miss: the World Championships, the Olympic Games and the Champs."
Slowly the rest of the world is beginning to cotton on. Last week the US announced a proposal to compete head-to-head against Jamaican sprinters from 2010, and McCook says IAAF President Lamine Diack wants to roll out the regional version of Champs – the Carifta Games (Caribbean Free Trade Association) – to the rest of the world.
Bryan questions whether Champs, can truly ever be replicated. "I doubt it. Imitate yes, but replicate? Next year is our 100th anniversary; this isn't something we started yesterday. We have a great handle on what goes on here.
"Try getting 30,000 people screaming and cheering at kids anywhere else in the world, it's virtually impossible, but other nations, if they want to start reaping the rewards, they do have to start now, the formative years is where it happens.
"Jamaica has the template and other nations should try to imitate it. Veronica Campbell says if you can compete at Champs you can compete anywhere. It gives you an indication as to the intensity here. So when a Jamaican athlete walks into an 80,000-seat stadium, it's just another day."
British athletics organisers can only dream of such a day. Despite luminaries such as Paula Radcliffe testifying to the importance of national schools competitions, the English schools championships attracts a crowd of less than 4,000, and is struggling to pay its bills. The Aviva money – around £160,000 over three years – is keeping the organisation afloat, but the costs of putting on the event are at £250,000 and reserves are running low. David Littlewood, secretary of the English Schools Athletics Association, worries what the future might hold. "We can only survive on our reserves for another four years maximum and then we would have to close down. We've never had any government or lottery money, we're on a tightrope budget. If it wasn't for Aviva, we would have disappeared last year."
In a world where the financial climate is making sports sponsorship ever harder to come by, Bolt may just prove the unlikely saviour of Britain's schools championships. It is Bolt's achievements that have lifted athletics out of the doldrums and excited the world about the sport. Even with the economic downturn sponsors are attracted to Bolt as a figurehead to promote their business.
Bolt says that he never follows athletics and is unaware of the bigger picture going on in the sport, yet he is sharply perceptive on what athletics needs to market itself.
"I think I put a spin on the sport," says Bolt in a happy mix of Jamaican colloquialism and PR speak, "people enjoy what I do, that's why people love to see me so much. Other people throw flowers in the crowd, jog around, wave, that's it. But people look forward to seeing what I'm going to do, that's my personality."
The 22-year-old, who ran 9.69 with such ease in Beijing, says he can go even faster – when he wants to. "Every time you break the world record you get paid for it, so if I go 9.52 or 9.54 that's going to be steep, but if I break it 9.68 or 9.65 there's space for more." The hottest property on earth throws back his head and laughs.
"I'm cool," he says, "I'm awesome, man. I'm the fastest man in the world." Athletics looks to have a bright future.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009...bolt-athletics
The national obession that is Jamaica's Boys and Girls Athletics Championships
Anna Kessel
The Observer, Sunday 5 April 2009
Talent unearthed at The National Championships has cemented Jamaica's status as a top athletics nation. Photograph: Kai Pfaffenbach/ReutersIn Jamaica there is only one event that grips the nation like the Olympic Games or World Championships – the national Boys and Girls Athletics Championships. To the rest of the world "Champs" may sound like a glorified school sports day, but to Jamaicans it is the highlight of the year, with crowds of 30,000 people gathering from across the island to watch over 100 schools battle it out for title of "King" or "Queen".
It is an event with 100 years of history – older even than our own national schools championships by 15 years – but it is only since the advent of Usain Bolt and his achievements in Beijing last summer that the rest of the world has begun to sit up and take notice.
As the four-day competition got underway last week its extraordinary hold over the island is immediately apparent. Everyone from hotel porters to fruit sellers in and around Kingston discuss which teenage stars to look out for. Bars and restaurants set up TV screens to watch the proceedings as the event is broadcast live from the National Stadium, with network channel CVMTV estimating around 1.2m viewers – from a population of 2.8m. Detailed reports dominate the front pages of the island's newspapers, with huge colour photographs hailing the nation's freshest crop of track and field stars.
It is surreal, listening to people on the street debate the merits of 15-year-old sprinters. Everyone has an opinion on who will be the next Bolt or Shelly-Ann Fraser. In the national stadium, supporters of each high school demonstrate their loyalties, screaming for their favourites. Dressed in team colours – the supporters in the purple and white of Kingston College taking up a whole stand to themselves – they bang drums and enjoy soup and roast corn, or jerk chicken wrapped in tin foil. As darkness falls, groups of school kids making their way home take up sticks; there are often violent clashes on the streets outside the stadium. This is no token support, loyalty to high schools goes back generations through a family. Outside the perimeter fence one supporter stands with a gun tucked into his belt. "Y'alright?" he says with a grin.
Every Jamaican athlete worth their salt began at Champs – from Don Quarrie to Bolt himself – and each year the alumni return to watch the next generation. All of them credit the competition as the defining experience in their journey to success. There was even a story going around the island that Asafa Powell lacked mental toughness in competition because he did not compete enough at Champs as a kid. Surely there could not be any truth in it?
"Yeah. I think so, definitely," says Bolt, who brought the house down, aged 16, at the 2003 Champs with a series of brilliant runs that culminated in a record-breaking 200m/400m double in 20.23sec and 45.30sec respectively. "Asafa only did Champs one year and he false started. It's the biggest thing us athletes look forward to every year – I still go every year – it's like the World Championships or the Olympics. It's very competitive – especially the relays – the atmosphere changes completely when the relays start. It prepares you… if you're not strong mentally, you'll crack."
British high jumper Germaine Mason, who grew up in Jamaica and holds the Champs under-16 high jump record, agrees. "The first time I competed I was 13 and really nervous. There were 30,000 people screaming and cheering, and I was shy to look in the stands, I had my head down. But the more I competed the more I got used to it. When I go to a major championships now I use that same method I used then to deal with the pressure."
Mason says that before winning his silver medal in Beijing, an injury put doubt in his mind about his ability to compete. "I had forgotten all about how to approach things, but I thought, 'I need to go back to my high-school days'. You just apply all that you learned from a young age.
"My record is still standing, 2.09, it's been 10 years and every year I go there to watch and see if anyone breaks it. Champs is the biggest thing in track and field here, bigger than the [senior] national championships. It's a traditional thing going way back, my dad did it, everyone's dad did it, and the rivalries go way back depending on what school your family went to."
Established in 1910, Champs are the bedrock of Jamaica's commitment to athletics success. The country eats, sleeps and breathes the sport, with even primary school children competing at the national stadium in the "Preps". Over 3,500 kids now compete annually at Champs, but the country's athletics infrastructure goes beyond annual events. Former Prime Minister Michael Manley – close friends with Fidel Castro – established a legacy when, receiving a grant from Cuba, he set up the GC Foster College in 1978, a higher education institution whose sole aim was to produce sports coaches for Jamaica.
That investment has reaped rewards. "We now have an athletics coach in every school, college and kindergarten in the country," explains Neville McCook, Council member of the IAAF and Secretary General of the Jamaica Olympic Association.
Unlike in the UK, where schools competitions struggle for finance – although a new three-year sponsorship deal with Aviva has kept the event alive up to 2012 – Champs has so much sponsorship money there are leftover funds to help pay for other sports such as hockey and basketball.
"It costs $22m Jamaican [£174,000] to put on Champs each year," says McCook, "which is paid for by our main sponsor, but we also have other sponsors and we get royalties from the broadcasts. That money also assists the colleges in preparing for Champs – which they do from June until March – the old boys association also pay a lot." Like every other alumni on the island and abroad, McCook is expected to dig into his own pocket to help fund future stars. McCook typically sponsors five athletes a year to help pay for, among other costs, medical bills and dental care. "One chapter in New York donated about $20,000 [£13,500], and three years ago our chapter in Miami put up a large sum to put up a new schools canteen."
Jamaicans say it is no surprise that their small island won an unprecedented 11 Olympic medals on the track last summer. While some prominent voices in the media questioned such prolific success, Jamaicans pointed to their investment – and results – at all age groups in recent years. While the rest of the world are fixated on the achievements of Bolt and his three gold medals and three world records in Beijing, Jamaica is already looking ahead to a "second tier" of sprinters. Their excitement is justified.
Last year Jazeel Murphy, aged 15, ran 100m in 10.42sec. Compare that time to Mark Lewis Francis's English schools record of 10.93sec – also aged 15 – and you begin to understand the depth of talent Jamaica has waiting in the wings. Dexter Lee, the current world junior champion over 100m, last night won the senior boys' race in 10.35 seconds, and there are others, such as Yohan Blake, 19, – a former Champs record holder – who now trains with Bolt and claims to be running under 10 seconds in practice.
Such is the reputation of these youngsters that agents and scouts travel from the US to watch what they describe as the world's best talent. Claude Bryan, agent for reigning 100m and 200m Olympic champion Veronica Campbell Brown, says the event is unique.
"Nowhere else in the world will you see 30,000 people cheering on high schoolers. This is the place to be. You've got scouts here, shoe companies here, university coaches here, this is the market place to be at. It's very competitive." Bryan says he doesn't go to other schools events in the US or Europe, "No, they're boring. For me there are only three track and field events I wouldn't miss: the World Championships, the Olympic Games and the Champs."
Slowly the rest of the world is beginning to cotton on. Last week the US announced a proposal to compete head-to-head against Jamaican sprinters from 2010, and McCook says IAAF President Lamine Diack wants to roll out the regional version of Champs – the Carifta Games (Caribbean Free Trade Association) – to the rest of the world.
Bryan questions whether Champs, can truly ever be replicated. "I doubt it. Imitate yes, but replicate? Next year is our 100th anniversary; this isn't something we started yesterday. We have a great handle on what goes on here.
"Try getting 30,000 people screaming and cheering at kids anywhere else in the world, it's virtually impossible, but other nations, if they want to start reaping the rewards, they do have to start now, the formative years is where it happens.
"Jamaica has the template and other nations should try to imitate it. Veronica Campbell says if you can compete at Champs you can compete anywhere. It gives you an indication as to the intensity here. So when a Jamaican athlete walks into an 80,000-seat stadium, it's just another day."
British athletics organisers can only dream of such a day. Despite luminaries such as Paula Radcliffe testifying to the importance of national schools competitions, the English schools championships attracts a crowd of less than 4,000, and is struggling to pay its bills. The Aviva money – around £160,000 over three years – is keeping the organisation afloat, but the costs of putting on the event are at £250,000 and reserves are running low. David Littlewood, secretary of the English Schools Athletics Association, worries what the future might hold. "We can only survive on our reserves for another four years maximum and then we would have to close down. We've never had any government or lottery money, we're on a tightrope budget. If it wasn't for Aviva, we would have disappeared last year."
In a world where the financial climate is making sports sponsorship ever harder to come by, Bolt may just prove the unlikely saviour of Britain's schools championships. It is Bolt's achievements that have lifted athletics out of the doldrums and excited the world about the sport. Even with the economic downturn sponsors are attracted to Bolt as a figurehead to promote their business.
Bolt says that he never follows athletics and is unaware of the bigger picture going on in the sport, yet he is sharply perceptive on what athletics needs to market itself.
"I think I put a spin on the sport," says Bolt in a happy mix of Jamaican colloquialism and PR speak, "people enjoy what I do, that's why people love to see me so much. Other people throw flowers in the crowd, jog around, wave, that's it. But people look forward to seeing what I'm going to do, that's my personality."
The 22-year-old, who ran 9.69 with such ease in Beijing, says he can go even faster – when he wants to. "Every time you break the world record you get paid for it, so if I go 9.52 or 9.54 that's going to be steep, but if I break it 9.68 or 9.65 there's space for more." The hottest property on earth throws back his head and laughs.
"I'm cool," he says, "I'm awesome, man. I'm the fastest man in the world." Athletics looks to have a bright future.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009...bolt-athletics