Rio Dream 1024x531 1 1024x531 1 1024x531 1The XXX1 Olympiad in Rio de Janeiro was interspersed with several outstanding athletic performances throughout. Three world records and eight Olympic records were established. The Caribbean, despite not having claims to any of these records, had some fairly outstanding achievements of their own. Here is a look at arguably the top ten performances by Caribbean athletes at the games.

  1. Usain Bolt became the first man to win the men’s individual 100m and 200m titles at three straight Olympics. Bolt also anchored his country’s 4x100m relay team to gold to clinch his ninth gold medal at the Olympics. He achieved the perfect and unmatched athletics feat of nine wins out of nine finals at the Olympic Games.

  1. Jamaica’s newest sprint queen Elaine Thompson became the first woman to win the women’s sprint double at an Olympic Games in 28 years after Florence Griffith-Joyner. Her winning times of 10.71 and 21.78 are among the fastest in Olympic history.

  1. Omar McLeod became the first Jamaican to win the men’s 110m hurdles at an Olympic Games. The world leader added the Olympic title to the world indoor crown he won in March in Portland, Oregon.

  1. Shaunae Miller became the second woman from the Bahamas to win the women’s 400m at the Olympics. She joined Tonique Williams-Darling who achieved the feat in 2004 at the Athens Games. They are the only Caribbean female athletes to win this title at the Olympic Games.

  1. Grenada’s Kirani James won the silver medal in the record-breaking 400m final. The London 2012 winner registered a season’s best 43.76 in Rio which was actually 0.18 seconds faster than his gold medal run four years earlier.

    1. Jamaica’s silver medal run in the men’s 4x400m was not only their first since the Sydney Games in 2000, it also marks the first time the country won a medal in all relay events contested by their men and women at an Olympic Games. The time of 2:58.16 by the men’s quartet was the country’s fourth fastest ever.

  1. When Chris Brown anchored Bahamas in the final of the men’s 4x400m to bronze, it meant his country had received its third straight medal in the event. Bahamas also completed their medal set – silver in Beijing 2008, gold in London 2012 and bronze in Rio 2016.

  1. Trinidad and Tobago’s Keshorn Walcott who at the London 2012 games became the first non-European since 1952 to win the men’s javelin made history again with another podium finish four years later. On this occasion he won bronze to become the first Caribbean athlete to win back-to-back medals in the javelin discipline at an Olympics.

  1. The women’s 400m hurdles final was the first time three Jamaican women were involved. The three Jamaicans were Janieve Russell, Ristananna Tracey and Leah Nugent. Tracey (54.15) and Nugent (54.45) recorded their personal best times in the final.

  1. Jamaica’s Annsert Whyte was the only English speaking Caribbean athlete in the final of the men’s 400m hurdles. He finished fifth in a final where four men ran below 48 seconds. Whyte can feel satisfied that he revised his personal best in every round – 48.37, 48.32 and 48.07.

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