Early yesterday morning local time Veronica Campbell-Brown certainly delivered a great performance as she raced to victory in the women's 200 meter finals and claiming the gold medal. She ran through the race powerfully and confidently from start to finish and it certainly paid off! Congratulations to Veronica Campbell Brown on winning the 200 meter sprint in 21.74 seconds and making her country even more proud!
By the time I arrived at the office and gobbled down some breakfast, the excitement had already started to build, despite the earlier disappointment. Everyone was rearing to go as it was time for the 100 meter male relays. This was a promising race with the biggest track stars on the Jamaica team, the two fastest men in the world, Asafa and Bolt. We all kept our fingers crossed and prayed for safe baton changes, the speed of the athletes in the race was not of much concern as we knew they could deliver on that. Everyone was on their mark with the athletes, and the room was filled with noise as the gun went off, we were all shouting, cheering and beating the table as this will have to be the race to redeem our earlier emotions. Our men relay team certainly delivered and avenged the fate of the female team as the blasted through the finish line, claiming the gold medal and setting a new world record of 37.10 seconds! Congratulations to the men's 4x100 team on an amazing victory! I must also extent congrats to the Trinidad and Tobago team who fished second to claim the silver medal. the entire Caribbean must be feeling proud right now!
Who said lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice? Well that legend was certainly proved false today when a Bolt of lightning struck Beijing this morning; wait… what is that I hear? Beijing was struck twice today? Yes the Jamaica team awed the Bird Nest Stadium with not one, but two brilliant, record breaking wins. Bolt unmistakably and phenomenally claimed the gold medal for the men’s 200m, while shortly after Melaine Walker gracefully, yet powerfully took the gold for the women’s 400m hurdles!
My office was evacuated at approximately 9:18am when everyone moved to the lunchroom, as it was time for the big race. The real big man, Usain Bolt was ready to claim what is his. The tension was high, not because we were nervous for him to win, but because we just wanted to see history in the making. As predicted and expected, Usain Bolt delivered an exciting performance as he shattered the current 200m world record setting a new record of 19.30 and claiming yet another gold medal. Congrats to Usain Bolt for setting yet another record, getting another Gold and making Jamaica and the Caribbean proud.
The contingent shortly gathered again in the lunchroom with bubbling excitement for the women’s 400m hurdles. And exciting it was! Not to be outdone, another female of from the Jamaica team comfortably claimed her Olympic goal as she sprinted away from her competitors. Melaine Walker displayed true determination with each jump of the hurdles to set a new Olympic record for the women’s 400m hurdles and the coveted gold medal. Congrats to Melaine on this achievement and making her nation proud.
Jamaica certainly celebrated these historic victories today all over. Reports are that Half Way Tree in the city of Kingston and St. Andrew came to a standstill today, with several vehicles stopped in their tracks and scores of people swarmed the road to watch the race on the huge screen erected across from the Transport Centre. I drove through Half Way Tree late in the morning and the support and pride of the Jamaican people was clearly evident. If I had invested in Jamaica flags before the Olympics I would have been a rich man by now. Never have I seen so many vehicles and people sporting the Jamaica flag, big or small they were blowing in the wind everywhere. There were several people seen selling flags along the roadway, and some of them were surrounded by mobs of people trying to purchase a flag. Jamaica is certainly a proud and happy nation at this moment as our athletes represent this tiny island wonderfully on the world scene.
Once again our Jamaican athletes made a memorable event that will be imprinted in the books of history, but this time for our strong female sprinters. Following closely on the ultimate victory of Ussain Bolt, our three 100m female finalists demonstrated total domination the event in an unprecedented way by being the first team in the history of the Olympics to claim one Gold and not only one Silver medal, but two Silver medals!
I know that several bloggers have already posted about this, but how could I not join in the throng of proud bloggers in saluting such a remarkable, record breaking performance, finely executed by Usain Bolt?
I am, however, disappointed with the performance of Asafa Powell, not because he didn't win, but because he didn't even medal. I was looking forward to seeing at least a Gold and Silver for this race. This is just like a rerun of his past performance in the last 100m Olympic final. It seems Asafa, even with his amazing speed, cannot outrun the power of his mind. And thus suffered greatly for this in the last Olympics and this one.
