Inside Jamaica's Sprint Factory Summary

At first glance, trying to becoming the best at sprinting seems to be a wholly physical endeavor. National Public Radio (NPR) argued against this concept with their piece “A Need for Speed: Inside Jamaica's Sprint Factory” by showing other possible reasons for Jamaica’s success in sprinting and also revealing the lack of evidence behind a purely biological explanation. While no one can deny that biology plays a large part in physical performance, what seems to separate the great athlete from the record breaking athlete is not conclusively biological.

While there are many hypothesizes for the biology behind Jamaican’s success in athletic competitions, none has a sizable amount of evidence. One thought process revolves around the nation’s natural food staples and tendencies in diet. The combination of food eaten by most Jamaicans is high in carbohydrates, which is thought to be beneficial to runners and naturally prepare them for sprinting. Dr. Errol Morrison bases the Jamaican athlete’s success on not only nutrition, but genetics, stating that the build of Jamaicans allow them to have an advantage. Jamaican runners often have long legs,

Dennis Johnson, an influential coach in Jamaica, had learned from his previous coach Bud Winter one of the secrets to running. It is as simple as relaxing. In Jamaica maintaining speed and relaxing are the preferred states to be in while running. The stress created by making one’s body perform at a high rate as well as the added pressures to succeed can make a runner tense and therefore use more energy. While the stress experienced may be categorized as a challenge rather than harm or threat, it may still be detrimental to performance as the last biological stage of coping is exhaustion (Walsh, 2013, pg. 136, 139). By refraining from becoming stressed Jamaican star athletes such as Usain Bolt can surpass their