Triumph in Tokyo

2025 TRIUMPH IN TOKYO

J apan’s bustling capital city is no stranger to hosting major athletics championships. Their first turn, the 1964 Summer Olympics, represented Tokyo’s resurgence from the devastation of World War II as it retook its place as a world capital. Before taking on the global games of 2025, the city would also stage the 1991 World Championships in Athletics and the postponed 2020 Olympic Games in 2021. 1964 SUMMER OLYMPICS Participants in the Summer Games since 1948, Jamaica sent a 21 person squad to Tokyo for competition in four sports, including athletics. These Games would introduce the world to Joe Frazier (USA, gold, heavyweight boxing), “Bullet” Bob Hayes (USA, gold, men’s 100m, 4x100m relay) and the USA’s Wyomia Tyus (USA, gold, women’s 100m) but the island won no medals in 1964, despite its core of world class athletes. Seventeen year old Una Morris was given a good chance to win a medal in the 200m after finishing third in two rounds, but was unlucky to get fourth place in the final by four hundredths of a second (23.5). Young rising Jamaican star Vilma Charlton, the ANOTHER TIME IN JAMAICA’S MIXED HISTORY IN THE JAPANESE CAPITAL MICHAEL A. GRANT

leaders and lead down the stretch. Kerr saw gold slipping away and went determinedly after Snell, but flagged near the line to be outdipped by Kiprugut for bronze, Kenya’s first ever Olympic medal. Later, he joined Laurie Khan and the Spence twins, Mel and Mal, for the 4x400m final, but they too were unlucky in fourth. Tokyo’s biggest disappointment for Jamaican track fans was Dennis Johnson, the “Jamaican Jet”, who had clocked the world record for 100 yards three times (some say four) in 1961. After finishing a tidy second in his heat, he could only manage 5th in quarterfinal 1, won by eventual bronze medal winner, Canada’s Harry Jerome. 1991 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS By now, Jamaicans were getting used to seeing their athletes on the podium at major games. This time, the emerging superpower would claim eighth spot on the medal table. Still running in the age of Carl Lewis, Ray Stewart won the first two rounds of the 100m, then scraped into the final with a 10.03 in the fast semifinal won by the USA’s Leroy Burrell. In the August 25 final, where six of the eight finalists went sub 10 (each one with personal or area

other teen sprinter, was on the 4x100 relay team that got as far as fifth in their semifinal heat. George Kerr arrived in Rome a double bronze Olympic medallist (800m, 4x400m, 1960), but was not ranked in the world top ten. Anxious to prove he still had it, the Jamaican once again faced New Zealand’s Peter Snell, who had won the Rome 800m four years earlier. Kerr was in the thick of things, breaking the Olympic record in his 800m semifinal. In the run for the medals, he led with Kenya’s Wilson Kiprugut for much of the race. Snell, who was boxed out early, broke out to pass the The Jamaican team marches into the Tokyo Stadium during the opening ceremony of the 1964 Olympics.