Natural born Jamaican sprinters stamp their authority
Natural born Jamaican sprinters stamp their authority
Their five gold medal haul was just one short of the United States cleansweep in the 1984 Log Angeles Games.

Beijing: Jamaica's dominance of the sprints at the Olympics was only a question of a matter of time for their talent has never been in doubt.

Their five gold medal haul - four individual and one relay - was just one short of the United States cleansweep in the 1984 Games and equalled the Americans total at the 1988 Games in Seoul.

Over the years they had consistently produced a series of top class sprinters, Don Quarrie yielding them a Olympic 200m gold in 1976 and Merlene Ottey swept up every medal that was going except for the one that really matters - gold.

However, here it was really a case of the Midas touch for whatever was in that imaginary lightning bolt that Usain Bolt showed off prior to his races, it had an electric effect on his teammates, both male and female.

But for a faulty baton handover in the women's 4x100m relay final it would likely have been six from six.

"We're the leading athletic country in the world," said Mike Fennell, President of the Jamaican Olympic Association.

"It is a result of pure, raw talent that has been properly nurtured. We're reaping the rewards of all that hard work."

Given the aura of drugs suspicion that the sport provokes - an unhappy reaction that it shares with cycling and weightlifting - there are those who question why have the Jamaicans suddenly gone from medal contenders to an all conquering team.

It was a question that Fennell was especially keen to nip in the bud.

"We take this anti-doping question very seriously and have done for some years. We've had testing for some time, and come under the scrutiny of the IAAF," he said, referring to the world athletics' governing body.

Certainly there will be those who refuse to accept that it was a clean hard fought and ultimately hugely successful campaign.

However, taking together Bolt realising his undoubted potential and peaking at the right time and the misfiring of the Americans, it was logical that the heirs apparent to the US crown was the Caribbean island.

"Jamaica is the sprint capital of the world," gushed former 100m individual world record holder Asafa Powell.

For Bolt it was very clear where all the success stemmed from.

"Jamaica's a very proud country. We work very hard to stay on top. We have some serious coaches who really push us to be the best we can," said the 22-year-old.

Few of the Americans were capable of coming up with reasons for their failure with perhaps Tyson Gay summing it up best from their side.

"Nobody should be surprised about what they have done here," said the 26-year-old, who actively sought out Bolt in the athletes village to congratulate him.

"They are natural born sprinters, fine athletes and when we went missing there was only going to be one result and that is Jamaica taking the honours.

"It isn't just a case of us not being good enough when the questions were asked, I prefer to think that this was a truly outstanding bunch of Jamaican sprinters, male and female."

Bolt for his part was quite clear that this was not a case of the Jamaicans keeping the bed warm while the Americans regroup for next year's world championships in Berlin and further ahead to the London Olympics in 2012.

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