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Believe it or not, 20 years have passed since Jamaica hosted the 2002 World Junior Championships. The meet heralded the coming of a new global star, Usain Bolt and launched the careers of several Jamaicans who went to the forefront of the sport. Together, they collected 2 gold, 5 silver and 4 bronze medals. In August, the 2022 team went to Cali, Columbia and nabbed 6 gold, 7 silver and 3 bronze medals.
The hope is that the 2022 group, led by gold medalists Tina Clayton, Jayden Hibbert, Brandon Pottinger, Kerrica Hill and Brianna Lyston, will match the senior-level accomplishments of Bolt and company.
Surrounded by an ever-growing throng of their yellow-clad countrymen inside the National Stadium in 2002, Bolt won the 200m while Sherone Simpson, Kerron Stewart, 200m second place finisher Anniesha McLaughlin and 100m runner-up Simone Facey took the 4×100.
Bolt became history’s greatest sprinter with 3 Olympic 100/200 doubles, 3 World Championship doubles and 5 world records. Simpson, the 2006 Commonwealth 200 winner, and Stewart tied for the 100m silver at the 2008 Olympics, with Stewart winning bronze in the 200 and silver in the 2009 World Championships, where McLaughlin and Facey placed 5th and 6th in the 200m.
Facey helped to win the 4×100 in 2009 and McLaughlin moved up to the 400 and won an Olympic relay silver in 2016.
Melaine Walker, Germaine Mason, Jermaine Gonzales, Sheryl Morgan and Camille Robinson were Jamaica’s other individual medal winners in 2002. Walker became a major star, moving from World Junior silver in the 400 hurdles to gold at the 2008 Olympics and 2009 Worlds. Mason added a high jump bronze to the silver garnered two years earlier and in 2004 won a bronze for Jamaica at the World Indoors. In 2006, Gonzales built on his World Junior 400 bronze with 3rd place at the Commonwealth Games, and in 2011, he was fourth at the World Championships.
Jumping for Great Britain, Mason placed second at the 2008 Olympics.
Fast forward to 2022 and Clayton, Hibbert, Pottinger, Hill and Lyston took the 100m, the triple jump, the high jump, the 100m hurdles and the 200m respectively. 100m runner-up Serena Cole, Tia Clayton, Hill and Tina combined to set a world under 20 record of 42.59 seconds to win the 4x100m. Hill zoomed 12.77 seconds to beat compatriot Alexis James and Alana Reid trailed Lyston for third in the 200m.
When you add the silver for Kobe Lawrence in the shot put, Jamaica’s first in the iron ball event at the World Under 20 Championships, the silver by Bouwaghjie Nkrumie in the 100 and the bronze for Roshawn Clarke in the 400m hurdles, you can’t avoid a smile.
There is, of course, no guarantee for the future but given that this crop outmatched the historic 2002 team, there is every reason to wish them just as much success as seniors.