Jamaica (JAM)

Jamaica has sent athletes to all the Olympic Games since 1948. In 1960, athletes from Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad combined to form the West Indies Federation team. That team won two medals, one of which was won by George Kerr, a Jamaican, in the 800 metres, while the other was a bronze in the 4×400 metre relay. Three members of that team were Jamaican while one was from Barbados.

Jamaica has won 87 Olympic medals (26 golds) through 2022, 86 of them in track & field athletics, led by its outstanding sprinters. The other medal was a bronze in cycling won by David Weller in the 1980 1,000 metre time trial.

The most renowned Jamaican athlete has been Usain Bolt, who won the 100 metres, 200 metres, and anchored the winning 4×100 metre relay at the 2008, 2012, and 2016 Olympics, although the 2008 relay gold medal was later removed for a doping positive by one of his teammates, Nesta Carter. After the medal removal, he ended his Olympic career with eight medals, all gold. He is followed on the gold medal count by sprinter Elaine Thompson-Herah, who has won six medals and five golds. Bolt’s medal total is equaled by his compatriots Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Veronica Campbell-Brown, both with eight medals and three golds. Despite never winning a gold medal, the Jamaican athlete with more medals is Merlene Ottey-Page, who won three silvers and six bronzes from 1980-2000.

In 1988, Jamaica competed at its first Olympic Winter Games, represented by the now famous Jamaican Bobsled Team. A movie, called “Cool Runnings”, was later made about the Jamaican bobsled team. Jamaica has since competed at all Olympic Winter Games, save 2006, mostly in bobsleigh. In 2010, Errol Kerr participated in freestyle skiing (Jamaica’s best Winter Olympic finish, a ninth place), in 2018, Anthony Watson raced in men’s skeleton and, in 2022, Alpine skier Benjamin Alexander finished 46th in the giant slalom.

Three Jamaican bob sliders participated at four Olympic Winter Games – brothers Chris Stokes and Dudley Stokes in 1988, 1992, 1994, and 1998, and Winston Watts in 1994, 1998, 2002, and 2014.