There will likely be 206 nations represented on the 2024 Paris Olympics. However two nations are anticipated to take middle stage within the monitor and area competitions: the U.S. and Jamaica.
Beginning on the Berlin Video games in 1936, when U.S. Olympian Jesse Owens gained 4 gold medals, American athletes, together with Carl Lewis, Florence Griffith Joyner and Allyson Felix, dominated for years within the 100-meter, 200-meter and 400-meter occasions. However the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2012 London Olympics put Jamaica on the map.
Though Staff USA gained gold within the males’s and girls’s 4×100 relays in Beijing, Jamaica’s Usain Bolt stole the present when he ran everybody off the monitor with world data and gold within the 100- and 200-meter races. In the meantime, Jamaica’s Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Veronica Campbell-Brown captured gold within the ladies’s 100- and 200-meter races.
On the London Video games 4 years later, People Felix and Sanya Richards-Ross gained gold within the ladies’s 200- and 400-meter races. Nonetheless, a defining second within the rivalry came about within the males’s 4×100-meter relay.
Coming into the competitors, Staff USA had a document of 15 wins and was the early favourite when sprinter Ryan Bailey readied to obtain the baton. Bolt had different plans that evening, propelling Jamaica to a come-from-behind triumph and establishing a world document, in the end leaving the American staff behind.
Jamaica’s success continued on the 2016 Rio Video games, the place Bolt — in his remaining Olympics — gained the 100 meters over American rival Justin Gatlin, in addition to the 200 meters. In the meantime, Jamaican Elaine Thompson, who has world data within the 100 meters and the 200 meters, gained gold in each occasions. Staff USA didn’t stroll away empty-handed, although, claiming gold within the ladies’s 4×100 and 4×400 relays and the lads’s 4×400 relay.
On the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, Thompson defended her gold medals within the 100-meter and 200-meter occasions whereas serving to Jamaica win the 4×100-meter relay. In the meantime, Staff USA gained gold within the males’s and girls’s 4×400-meter relays.
Now consideration turns to the 2024 Paris Video games, the place the rivalry will function American Noah Lyles, Sha’Carri Richardson and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone competing towards Jamaica’s largest stars, together with Fraser-Pryce and Shericka Jackson.
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Within the males’s occasions, Lyles is more likely to face stiff competitors from 22-year-old Jamaican star Kishane Thompson. His emergence comes as he prepares for his first Olympics. He informed Jamaica’s Nationwide 90 FM: “Life was very humbling. Nothing was given to me, and I needed to actually work for it and get by means of my trials and tribulations. I stored striving more durable and by no means gave up on myself and did what I needed to do, much more than I needed to do, and it stored me grounded.”
Ultimately month’s Jamaica Olympic Observe and Subject Trials, Thompson ran a blistering 9.77 seconds within the 100 meters, turning into the fourth-fastest Jamaican of all time. Thomson informed reporters he’s able to operating even faster, saying, “I’m not positive how briskly I can go, however the time didn’t shock me tonight.”
Lyles, nonetheless, isn’t shying away from competitors. Requested about Thompson’s tempo, Lyles stated final month, “I hope he stays wholesome.”
Within the ladies’s occasions, Richardson will compete within the 100 meters towards Fraser-Pryce and Jackson, who’s concentrating on her first particular person Olympic gold in each the 100-meter and the 200-meter occasions. All are chasing the 100-meter world document of 10.49 seconds, set in 1988 by Griffith Joyner.
Jackson is coming off a profitable efficiency in final month’s Jamaica Nationwide Championships, the place she bested Fraser-Pryce, her Olympic teammate, within the 100 meters. “I don’t have an [individual] Olympic gold medal,” she stated after the race, “and that’s one thing that I’m positively trying ahead to this 12 months.”
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In the meantime, Richardson’s focus in Paris facilities on redemption after she missed the 2020 Olympics due to a failed drug take a look at for hashish. She’s going to enter because the 2024 Video games as arguably the highest contender within the 100 meters.
Richards-Ross, a four-time gold medalist and NBC analyst, says a gold medal in Paris solely “begins her legacy.”
“She’ll win the Olympic gold medal within the 100, and now it begins the dialog of the place she stands within the historical past books,” Richards-Ross informed NBC Information. “She’ll have to come back again and do extra. You’re not going to be a legend off of 1 Olympic gold medal. It begins her legacy, nevertheless it begins her legacy in one of the best ways attainable. If she wins this Olympics, she’s on monitor to be within the dialog as one of many greats.”
