Jamaican Sports Legends

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Jamaican Sports Legends | Merlene Ottey

By Venesha Johnson | Associate Writer

Jamaica is the true embodiment of one of our favourite phrases “ wi likkle but wi tallawah”. With only approximately 3 million people, we have created so many Jamaican sports legends, who have cemented their names and ultimately our country in global history.

Here are some of our most iconic Jamaican sports legends:

Cricket

Chris Gayle

Chris Gayle, the most frequently used West Indian in international cricket, is the only player to have scored triple hundreds in Tests, double hundreds in ODIs, and a century in T20Is. He overcame Brian Lara's 10,348-run mark to become the most prolific West Indian ODI run-scorer.

Courtney Walsh

Former Jamaican cricketer Courtney Walsh competed for the West Indies cricket team from 1984 until 2001. One of the best fast bowlers of all time, Walsh finished his career with 519 wickets after being the first bowler to take 500 Test wickets. 2010 saw Walsh become a member of the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.

Basketball

Patrick Ewing

One of the best talents of his era, Patrick Ewing is a Jamaican-born American basketball player and coach who spent the majority of his career with the New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association (NBA).  He received three All-American nods and was selected as the Division I basketball tournament's best performer in 1984. He guided the Knicks to 13 postseason berths throughout his 15 years with the franchise, including a trip to the 1994 NBA Finals, but he ultimately was unable to win the team a championship. He was picked as an NBA all-star 11 times during his career. Ewing retired in 2002.

Football

Theodore “Tappa” Whitmore

In a friendly game against the United States in November 1993, Theodore "Tappa" Whitmore made his debut for the Jamaican national team. Whitmore, a midfield general known for his inventive, supple passes, helped Jamaica's 1998 Reggae Boyz World Cup qualification team succeed. He scored twice in Jamaica's 2-1 World Cup victory over Japan to become an instant sensation throughout the world. He is now the only Jamaican to have scored goals while representing his country in the World Cup. In 1998, he was also named Caribbean Footballer of the Year. Whitmore continued to play in the English league, first for Hull City and then for Livingston in Scotland. In 2004, he signed with Tranmere Rovers and announced his retirement from international football.

Alan “Skill” Cole

Folk hero Alan "Skill" Cole from Jamaica achieved legendary football accomplishments. Before transferring to Campion College in 1964, Cole attended Kingston College in 1962, which was a dominant force in schoolboy football at the time. He then enrolled at Vere Technical in 1965, when he made his schoolboy debut and made an immediate impact by scoring 38 goals and taking the lead in the daCosta Cup competition.  When Cole made his senior squad debut against a Brazilian team at the age of 15, he became the team's youngest player ever. Despite having brief professional careers, Cole's international career never really took off. In acknowledgement of Alan "Skill" Cole's service to Jamaican football, FIFA President Sepp Blatter gave him a plaque in September 2010.

Track and Field

Usain St Leo Bolt

Bolt is the first individual in history to hold the world records for the 100-meter and 200-meter runs with times of 9.58 seconds and 19.19 seconds, respectively. With a time of 36.84 seconds, he also owns the world record for the men's 4x100-meter Jamaican relay team. He is the only sprinter to have captured gold in both the 100- and 200-meter competitions at three consecutive Olympic Games in 2008, 2012, and 2016. He is also the first athlete to win four 200-meter World Championship titles. Additionally, he has three gold medals from the 100-meter event.

Merlene Ottey

Ottey has competed in the most Olympic games ever, six times for Jamaica and once for Slovenia. Ottey, often known as the "bronze queen," captured Jamaica's first-ever female medal, a bronze in the 200 meters, in the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow. She continued to win more silver and bronze medals, but she was unable to capture the gold. She ran the 100 meters in 10.74 seconds on September 7, 1996, in the Arena Civica in Milan, Italy, making her the tenth-fastest woman in history. The legendary athlete won nine Olympic medals, including three silver and six bronze. At 52 years old, she retired in 2012.

Arthur Wint

Wint became Jamaica's first Olympic gold medalist when she won the 400-meter race in 46.2 seconds at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London. He was a member of the Jamaican 4400-meter men's relay team that won the gold medal and set a world record in the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki. won a gold medal at the 800-meter race at the Central American Games in Panama in 1937. In addition to winning the 400-meter gold medal at the 1948 Olympics, he also took home a silver in the 800-meter race. At the 1952 Olympics, he earned another silver in the 800-meter race in addition to the gold for the 4400-meter relay. 

The Hon. Herbert “Herb” McKenley

McKinley established a world record for the fastest 400-meter time fifty years ago. He is recognized as being the main reason Jamaica has achieved success in track and field.  He competed in a total of six events at the Olympics in 1948 and 1952, taking home one gold and three silver medals. He is the first sportsperson to have competed in all three sprinting events' Olympic finals—the 100, 200, and 400 meters. In 1947, he broke three records: the 100-meter dash time of 10.3 seconds, the 200-meter dash time of 20.4 seconds, and the 400-meter dash time of 46.2 seconds. He was the first and only person to ever pull this off. At the first Pan American Games in 1951, he came in third in the 100, 200, and 400 meters, the only time this had ever happened. In 2004, the Jamaican Order of Merit was given to him as recognition for his sporting accomplishments. In 2007 he passed away.

Deon Hemmings

Deon Hemmings holds the distinction of winning Jamaica's first of many female gold medals. This was carried out during the Atlanta, Georgia, Summer Olympics in 1996. Hemmings ran the 400-meter hurdles. Hemmings also holds two Olympic silver medals for the 400-meter run and the 4x400-meter relay in addition to her historic gold medal triumph. 2003 saw the gold medalist's retirement.

Shelly-ann Fraser-Pryce

The third fastest woman in the world and second fastest alive, the current five-time World Champion has won eight Olympic medals. Fraser-Pryce made history when she competed in her very first Olympic games, Beijing 2008. At age 21, the Caribbean woman made Olympic history by being the first to win the 100-meter gold medal. She matched the pace set by fellow Jamaican sprinter Elaine Thompson-Herah in the Japan Olympic Games by running the 100 meters in 10.60 seconds at Stade Olympique de la Pontaise in Lausanne, Switzerland, to become the second-fastest woman alive.

Veronica Campbell-Brown

Veronica Campbell-Brown, also known as VCB, is a world champion and Olympic medalist. At the age of 18, Campbell Brown won a silver medal in the 4x100-meter relay in Sydney, Australia, in 2002 to earn her first Olympic medal. She is the youngest Jamaican to ever win a medal, which makes her even more historic. She would go on to win numerous medals and titles in the 100- and 200-meter sprints, including 7 Olympic medals. By winning the 200-meter sprint once more at the Olympics in Beijing in 2008, VCB became just the second woman in history to successfully defend her championship.

Elaine Thompson Herah

The fastest woman living at the moment is Elaine Thompson Herah, who completed the 100 meters in 10.54 seconds in Eugene, Oregon. This comes after historically breaking Florence Griffiths Joyner's 100-meter record of 10.60 seconds set at the Japan Olympic Games. She also won the gold in the 200-meter race, making her the first woman to successfully defend both her 100- and 200-meter championships in the Winter Olympic Games following her triumphs in Rio 2016. Her six total Olympic medals—five gold and one silver—include this one.

Swimming

Alia Atkinson

Former Jamaican swimmer Alia Atkinson, an Olympian and holder of several Guinness World Records, competed for her country in five Olympics between the 2004 Athens Games when she was barely 15 and the 2021 Tokyo Games. She has participated in the 50-, 100-, and 200-meter breaststrokes and the 50-meter freestyle as a professional swimmer. Atkinson has participated in competitions at both regional and international levels, winning 124 medals overall, 74 of which are gold. She set a new world record for the 100-meter breaststroke by being the second woman to do it in 1:04:36. She also holds a joint Guinness World Record for this feat. She broke her own 50-meter breaststroke record from 2016 to 2018. In 2014 Atkinson became the first black woman in history to win the World Championships in swimming. Atkinson retired in 2021 with both her world records unbeaten. 

It is never easy to create a list like this because we have so many Jamaican sports legends, dead and alive, which makes selecting just a few quite hard. Jamaica is forever grateful for our icons, those on and off this list. 

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Return to Top Male Jamaican Sprinters from Jamaican Sports Legends 
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References & Sources For Jamaican Sports Legends

1. Jamaica Football Legends. (n.d.). Jamaica Football Legends. https://thereggaeboyz.com/football-legends.html
2. Famous Jamaican Cricketers Every Geek Will Recognize. (n.d.). Famous Jamaican Cricketers. https://www.thefamouspeople.com/jamaican-cricketers.php

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