JAMAICA-SPORTS: A Nation Pauses to Celebrate

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Misha Lobban

KINGSTON, Aug 1 1996 (IPS) - For the first time in weeks the rising crime rate, the difficulties facing the financial sector and gang warfare which have been dominating the news in recent weeks in this northern Caribbean island have been temporarily forgotten.

On the streets, in offices and in bars men and women greeted each other with hugs. On the streets drivers honked their horns, flashed their headlights, people screamed and danced about, while still others remained speechless, overcome by emotion.

The two television stations kept replaying the race which saw 27- year-old Deon Hemmings winning the 400-metre hurdles in a new Olympic record time of 52.82 seconds, ahead of American rivals Kim Batten and Tonja Buford-Bailey.

“This is a proud moment in the life of the nation. She has done all Jamaica a world of good and on behalf of the nation, I shall express our gratitude to her,” said prime minister, Percival Patterson who is attending the Games in Atlanta.

“(The) flowering of excellence in the happiest possible moment,” was how Bruce Golding, leader of the National Democratic Movement, one of the political parties here described Hemmings’ achievement.

“All Jamaica rejoices with the superb athlete, whose splendid win we hope will be followed by other magnificent wins for Jamaica’s ambassadors in Atlanta,” he added.

“From she was 10 years old Deon told me I’m going to run mommy because I just love to run,” said mother, Dimple Hemmings.

Deon Hemmings has become the first Jamaican woman to win a gold medal at the Olympic Games and she has also won for Jamaica the first gold medal in those Games in 20 years. In 1976 sprinter Donald Quarrie won the 200 metres at the Games in Montreal, Canada.

“It means a lot to be Jamaica’s first female gold medalist. This is a moment I will always cherish. It makes me feel so good,” said Deon Hemmings after the race.

“You would not believe your eyes if you had seen how Jamaican journalists covering the Olympic Games here behaved when Deon Hemmings got to the finish line first in the 400 metres hurdles final Wednesday,” said Horace Helps, sports editor at the Jamaica Observer.

“Some were even more nervous than Deon before the race started, and the talk of the evening was whether she could repeat her Olympic- breaking time of 51.99 seconds she set two days before (in the semi- finals).”

But to many Jamaicans, Hemmings’ victory, was reminiscent of 1993 when 36-year-old Merlene Ottey won the gold medal in the 200 metres at the World Championship Games in Stuttgart Germany and has again turned the spotlight on the achievements of Jamaican women in the athletics arena.

Ottey herself has been a prolific medal winner getting some 10 medals at world championship games.

Only two others, Juliet Cuthbert who won two silvers in the 100 and 200 metres in the 1992 Barcelona Games and Grace Jackson- Small who won a silver medal in the 100 metres in the 1988 Olympics up to now had come close to equalling Ottey’s career.

Observers say Jamaica’s women have always shared with the men the tradition of excellence in regional and international competitions, winning several medals in both individual and team races in the Commonwealth and Pan American Games, but medals were hard to come by until Ottey broke the jinx in 1980.

Hemmings herself won a silver medal at the 1991 Pan American Games. She placed second in the 400-metre hurdles at the Commonwealth Games in 1994 and third in the World Championships last year.

The island’s first Olympic team in 1948 featured Cynthia Thompson who placed sixth in the 100-metre final and Kathleen Russell sixth in the long jump.

Back then Arthur Wint won the island’s first Olympic gold in the 400 metres, a silver in the 800 while Herb McKinley won a silver in the 400 metres.

The men have dominated the medal tally since then going on to win gold and silver in the 400 metres, gold in the 4×400 metres relay and silver in the 100 metres in Helsinki in 1952 and several other medals in Commonwealth and Pan American games in track and field, boxing and cycling.

The women have had to be satisfied with the series of bronze medals Ottey has won and Jackson’s and Cuthbert’s silver.

Now with Hemmings’ performance, sports analysts here have already begun to label her the “heir apparent” to Ottey.

“This is particularly wonderful as Merlene Ottey is heading toward the end of a magnificent career and it is very timely at this stage that she should be handing over the torch to Hemmings,” says Patterson.