I like that foot development theory. Uptown, downtown, rich, poor, Jamaican children do a lot of playing, walking, hanging out at home barefooted. I still hate house slippers to this day. Would be awesome if someone actually studied and confirmed that theory.
Even in America when I go to the AAU track meets as a Master some of those events are a little like this. It’s a big party and everyone is having a great time
My belief is that Trelawny produces a disproportionate number of great sprinters due to the large maroon colonies that existed there. They were strong and smart enough to escape the plantations, isolated themselves, and lived off the land. They reproduced amongst themselves. There was no distillation of those genes for a long while. Tough people with tough mindsets and genes that favored strong physiology that passed from one generation to another with no outside influence. Post slavery when some of them left maroon life and settled in Trelawny proper those genes got passed on to others in Trelawny and the physical dominance expressed itself in sports. All speculation of course, but I can think of no other reason for Trelawny to have the number of Olympians it does relative to other rural areas in Jamaica where life is exactly the same.
Of course the nutrition, and environment where people get a lot of daily exercise in Jamaica positively impacts the athletes' performance, but I think genetics is the main factor. I think slavery had the effect of making all the people who descended from slaves strong. First, the slaves were pre-selected for being strong, second slavery was cruel and viscous with slaves experiencing poor nutrition, disease and violent abuse, so the people who survived being transported across the ocean and generations who survived slave labour after became very fit. The sports the descendants of slaves excel at are track and basketball, or other sports that do not take a lot of initial money investment from parents. I think years from now, we will see descendants of slaves dominate in sports that previously black people were not able to participate in due to economic barriers and racial barriers to the sports, like swimming, gymnastics etc. Serena Williams, LeBron James, Usain Bolt, Simone Biles serve as inspirations to the next generation of young black athletes.
It’s not just african slaves, it’s africans in general. Africans are able to store more ATP-CP (the fuel for sprinters), they have higher testosterone, I’ve also heard that some africans have mutation which causes psoas minor and psoas major to be activated by the same motor neuron, so they can produce more force without mental effort, etc.
An interesting note, Usain Bolt, Veronica Campbell-Brown, Yohan Blake and Michael Frater are all from Trelawny. Maybe it's something in the water or just coincidence. hahaha.
