Are we that Bad

or are we just unfairly hard on ourselves. It just dawned on me that Turkey, a country of 85 million, is unable to produce top athletes at the rate of Jamaica, a country with a population of just under 3 million. With all its wealth, Turkey is unable to develop its own domestic program to produce top athletes like Jamaica does, almost at will. They have to resort to poaching from Jamaica. After Jamaica had invested millions of dollars to nurture them from childhood to olympic glory, Turkey, who did not spend a penny in their development, could just pluck them away for a few dollars. And, who do we curse and blame? Jamaica. But, in my analysis, Jamaica must have been doing something right to produce all these world class athletes, and deserves the praise. Pirating must not be applauded and encouraged, whether it is music or athletes.

In reply to Besar

It’s understandable that people feel upset seeing Jamaican athletes switching allegiance to compete under another flag, but we have to be real about the situation. Many of these athletes are in disciplines where the financial rewards are limited, and Turkey is offering life-changing opportunities, just like the UK, US, and Canada do for our nurses and teachers. Every year, our professionals migrate in search of better pay and stability, and we don’t call that betrayal or pirating, we call it survival and ambition. Why should it be different for athletes who also have families to support and futures to secure? Instead of blaming Turkey, maybe we should be asking how we can better support and retain our talent at home.

In reply to nitro

I did not utter a word of blame on the athletes. It just occured to me how many times I've read and heard that Jamaica had provided no support for these athletes. How have they gotten thus far? Another thing, just to respond to nurses, teachers etc. These days, most of those athletes careers are accompanied by scholarships to colleges/universities where they could prepare themselves in other fields that they can fall back to after track and field is over. A lot of the teachers and nurses that you compare them with, had to find their own ways after high school to achieve these careers. And after that, gave many years of service before venturing abroad.

& hear this! There are provinces in Turkey with people of African descent! Rum guh google it, nah!?

In reply to Besar



Maybe Turkey's primary focus is not Track and Field.

Their main sports are:
Football
Basketball
Volleyball
Wrestling
Weight lifting


Very similar to the pain WI fans feel when players make themselves available for Franchise leagues and not WI

Why pick on Turkey? Indian has over one billion people and the have never won a medal in an Athletic event in any World Track tournament.

In reply to dayne

Not true, they just won javelin medals, ever heard of The Flying Sikh? He missed a 400m medal in '60 Olympics by 0.13 sec

In reply to Brerzerk

Was flying an Olympic event back in the 60's

If Jamaicans fighting fe KFC, anything is possible.