Jamaica Hasn't Had Much to Celebrate This Olympics

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, the AP reports.

• 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.

• Now, track fans await the lineup for Thursday's 4x100 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," says 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."

(More 2024 Paris Olympics stories.)