Moving Back to Jamaica

A blog about my Move Back to Jamaica after 20+ years of living in the US. Most of the articles focus on the period from 2005-2009 when the transition was new, and at it's most challenging.

Saturday, August 09, 2008

Wall Street Journal article on Jamaican Sprinters

The following article was beautifully written by Colin Channer, and author whose work I love.

He talks about the success our sprinters are having, and why we produce so very many sprinters given our limitations. Here is how the article begins:

'Cool Runnings' Are Heating Up

In Jamaica, time moves slowly, but runners move fast. Why the laid-back island may dominate Olympic sprinting
By COLIN CHANNER
August 9, 2008; Page W4

[Usain Bolt ]
Sports Illustrated/Getty Images
Usain Bolt

Call me "licky licky." A few years ago, 26 to be precise, I thought I'd leave Jamaica and move to New York to write. Now I have a U.S. passport, two American publishers, and a writing residency at a small New England college where one of my favorite writers -- a Mr. Nabokov -- used to teach. I owe this country a lot. Some would say everything. But now that the Olympics are here, there's a good chance that my loyalties will change.

So call me licky licky -- "flaky" in Jamaican English. But it's hard not to get caught up in the island's Olympic dreams. In Beijing, where 28 sports will be contested, Jamaica stands a serious chance of winning the bulk of the men's and women's sprints -- the 100 meters, the 200 meters and the 4x100-meter relays.



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2 Comments:

At 8/09/2008 12:55 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Francis, thanks for posting this piece.A superb comment on Jamaica and its extraordinar and remarkable runners by Mr. Colin Channer.Wishing the Black Gold and Green the best in the Olympics.

 
At 10/16/2008 12:35 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

For the record, "licky licky" is not Jamaican patois for "flaky". It actually translates to "selfishly greedy", i.e. If you ate dinner first and then went back for more before other people got a chance to eat your mother would admonish you for be "too licky licky".

 

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