Tweet
USA vs Jamaica: who rules the sprint events?
US athletes dominated the sprinting events at the Olympics until Beijing 2008, but the island of Jamaica has emerged as the sprinting superpower in recent years. Read on to see how the countries compare from Barcelona 1992 through to London 2012
• Get the data
• More Olympics data journalism and data visualisations from the Guardian
Bolt (R) and Blake celebrate the Jamaican team's gold medal in the 4 x 100m men's relay - the final athletics event in the Olympic stadium. Photograph: Dan Chung/IPhone 4S/Canon binoculars/Snapseed Photograph: Dan Chung/Guardian
When US sprinter Ryan Bailey was handed the baton in last night's 4x100m relay final, he was ahead of Usain Bolt and there was a sense that the Americans might win the event for a 16th time in Olympic history. But the US quartet were again denied by Bolt, who brought his country its fourth gold sprinting medal of London 2012, and a new world record.
Prior to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, American athletes had traditionally dominated the raw speed events. Team USA took home 13 medals from the ten sprinting contests in Athens eight years ago and at the time, the 100m world record of 9.78 seconds was held by US athlete Tim Montgomery and the 200m world record belonged to sprinter-turned-BBC pundit Michael Johnson.
* Medal scores are calculated using the IOC ranking method - a gold medal is given three points, silver two points and bronze one point But the US, which has a population 116 times the size of Jamaica's and an economy exactly a thousand times larger, was beaten by the islanders in Beijing, with Usain Bolt winning gold in the 100m and 200m finals, and compatriots Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Veronica Campbell-Brown victorious in the 100m and 200m sprint contests respectively. The Americans flew home with a single gold medal, while the Jamaicans returned to Kingston with five gold sprinting medals.
Beijing could have been a wake-up call for the Americans, but Team USA fared little better in London. Usain Bolt won gold with an Olympic record in the 100m final and fellow Jamaican Yohan Blake hung on to win silver, with the USA's Justin Gatlin winning bronze. On Thursday, when Bolt retained his 200m Olympic title, it was an all-Jamaican affair as team-mates Yohan Blake and Warren Weir claimed silver and bronze. Wallace Spearmon, the only American to compete in the 200m final, finished fourth.
Team USA's women were more successful than their male counterparts and the Jamaican women, with Allyson Felix and Sanya Richards-Ross winning gold in the 200 and 400m finals respectively and the US claiming a gold gold medal in the 4x100m relay with a new world record.
The data below, going back to 1992, highlights Jamaica's increasing dominance of Olympic sprinting events. Medal scores are calculated using the official IOC ranking standard - gold counts for three points, silver gets two points and a bronze medal is awarded one point.
• The USA's GDP is over 1,000 times that of Jamaica - $15.09 trillion vs $15.07 billion
• The US population is 116 times larger than Jamaica's
• In the 200m Michael Johnson held the world record, set in Atlanta in 1996, for 12 years. The record was broken by Usain Bolt (the current world record holder), in 2009.
• US athlete Sanya Richards-Ross, winner of the 400m race and silver medallist in the 200m, is a native of Kingston, Jamaica. She became a naturalised US citizen in 2002.
• In the men's 4x100m relay, the US have won gold in 15 out of the 22 Olympic Games they have competed at it.
• Of the 50 Olympians who competed for Jamaica at London 2012, 47 competed in athletics.
• All three of the 200m medallists; Usain Bolt, Yohan Blake and Warren Weir, are coached by Glen Mills as part of the Racers Track Club based in Jamaica's capital Kingston. Mills was Jamaica's head coach for 22 years until 2009, during which the island won 71 World Championships medals and 33 Olympics medals in athletics.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/seri...-olympics-data
US athletes dominated the sprinting events at the Olympics until Beijing 2008, but the island of Jamaica has emerged as the sprinting superpower in recent years. Read on to see how the countries compare from Barcelona 1992 through to London 2012
• Get the data
• More Olympics data journalism and data visualisations from the Guardian
Bolt (R) and Blake celebrate the Jamaican team's gold medal in the 4 x 100m men's relay - the final athletics event in the Olympic stadium. Photograph: Dan Chung/IPhone 4S/Canon binoculars/Snapseed Photograph: Dan Chung/Guardian
When US sprinter Ryan Bailey was handed the baton in last night's 4x100m relay final, he was ahead of Usain Bolt and there was a sense that the Americans might win the event for a 16th time in Olympic history. But the US quartet were again denied by Bolt, who brought his country its fourth gold sprinting medal of London 2012, and a new world record.
Prior to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, American athletes had traditionally dominated the raw speed events. Team USA took home 13 medals from the ten sprinting contests in Athens eight years ago and at the time, the 100m world record of 9.78 seconds was held by US athlete Tim Montgomery and the 200m world record belonged to sprinter-turned-BBC pundit Michael Johnson.
* Medal scores are calculated using the IOC ranking method - a gold medal is given three points, silver two points and bronze one point But the US, which has a population 116 times the size of Jamaica's and an economy exactly a thousand times larger, was beaten by the islanders in Beijing, with Usain Bolt winning gold in the 100m and 200m finals, and compatriots Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Veronica Campbell-Brown victorious in the 100m and 200m sprint contests respectively. The Americans flew home with a single gold medal, while the Jamaicans returned to Kingston with five gold sprinting medals.
Beijing could have been a wake-up call for the Americans, but Team USA fared little better in London. Usain Bolt won gold with an Olympic record in the 100m final and fellow Jamaican Yohan Blake hung on to win silver, with the USA's Justin Gatlin winning bronze. On Thursday, when Bolt retained his 200m Olympic title, it was an all-Jamaican affair as team-mates Yohan Blake and Warren Weir claimed silver and bronze. Wallace Spearmon, the only American to compete in the 200m final, finished fourth.
Team USA's women were more successful than their male counterparts and the Jamaican women, with Allyson Felix and Sanya Richards-Ross winning gold in the 200 and 400m finals respectively and the US claiming a gold gold medal in the 4x100m relay with a new world record.
The data below, going back to 1992, highlights Jamaica's increasing dominance of Olympic sprinting events. Medal scores are calculated using the official IOC ranking standard - gold counts for three points, silver gets two points and a bronze medal is awarded one point.
• The USA's GDP is over 1,000 times that of Jamaica - $15.09 trillion vs $15.07 billion
• The US population is 116 times larger than Jamaica's
• In the 200m Michael Johnson held the world record, set in Atlanta in 1996, for 12 years. The record was broken by Usain Bolt (the current world record holder), in 2009.
• US athlete Sanya Richards-Ross, winner of the 400m race and silver medallist in the 200m, is a native of Kingston, Jamaica. She became a naturalised US citizen in 2002.
• In the men's 4x100m relay, the US have won gold in 15 out of the 22 Olympic Games they have competed at it.
• Of the 50 Olympians who competed for Jamaica at London 2012, 47 competed in athletics.
• All three of the 200m medallists; Usain Bolt, Yohan Blake and Warren Weir, are coached by Glen Mills as part of the Racers Track Club based in Jamaica's capital Kingston. Mills was Jamaica's head coach for 22 years until 2009, during which the island won 71 World Championships medals and 33 Olympics medals in athletics.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/seri...-olympics-data
Comment