The Jamaica Olympic Association (JOA) is planning to make history for their country in Paris 2024 with a record number of athletes competing across a record number of sports. The President of the JOA, Christopher Samuda, is chalking the possibility up to Jamaican athletes competing in non-traditional sports and excelling.
The Olympic Database shows Jamaica has won a total of 87 medals at the Olympic Games and all of those have come from athletics with the exception of a single bronze medal in cycling in Moscow 1980.
Samuda shared if Jamaica wants to continue to develop and compete against some of the dominant nations, it will need to start focusing on those non-athletic disciplines.
“The JOA has as one of its main objectives to ensure that we broaden and deepen our representation in ‘non-traditional’ sports on the international and regional stage and therefore we have been resourcing and we have been investing in quite a few of these ‘non-traditional’ sports. However, we do not term them as non-traditional sports because we feel like each sport has an equal share of belonging,” Samuda said. “That is for us a definition of sports development, when you are able to have the country being represented in several sports rather than one sport or two sports.”
The country is focusing on introducing these sports at a youth level in order to help the athletes find their niche. Since not every child will be the strongest in those athletic fields, introducing them to other options will allow other sports to grow.
“We always feel that our youth must be given options in sports (because) not everybody is an athlete in track and field, not everybody is a footballer or cricketer and therefore we have to find other sports in which they can participate in, self-actualize and also grow the sports to the extent that we have quite a few flagship sports and not just simply one,” he said.
While the JOA has been receiving corporate sponsorships, they still need more to get involved if their goal of growing outside of the athletic disciplines will come to fruition. Some of them, like fencing, are rather expensive programs to run and will need more help. The JOA is inviting other corporate sponsors to get involved in order for Jamaica to succeed in this new mission.
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