Background
Jamaica is a large island with approximately 2.8 million residents that lies in the northern Caribbean Sea. Lying to the south of Cuba and to the southwest of the countries on Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic, the island was originally colonized by the Spanish Empire until the British seized control of the island in 1655. Jamaica first competed as a British colony at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London, England, and competed at the next two Summer Olympics under the same auspices of the British Empire. The colony joined Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados in 1958 to form the West Indies Federation, competing jointly with those nations at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, Italy. Jamaica later withdrew from the West Indies Federation, declaring complete independence from Great Britain in 1962, And participated as an independent nation for the first time at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan. Between 1964 and 2008, the Caribbean nation sent delegations to all twelve Summer Olympic games, in addition to five Winter Olympic games.
Although athletes representing Jamaica had won medals at every Olympic games since 1948 with the exceptions of in 1956 and 1964, the nation's delegation to the Beijing Olympics marked its most successful performance to that date than at any other Olympic games. More athletes (50 in total, including more female athletes than ever before) competed for Jamaica in Beijing than at any previous Games, more gold medals were won (6 in Beijing alone, almost doubling the number of gold medals won in Jamaica's Olympic history) and more medals were won overall (11 medals, besting Jamaica's showing at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, where 9 medals were won).
At the Beijing games, 15 athletes were awarded medals for their performance in events. Three of those athletes (Kerron Stewart, Shericka Williams, and Usain Bolt) were awarded multiple medals. Usain Bolt won the most medals of any Jamaican at Beijing after achieving three gold medals. Of the 50 athletes, which were spread across four sports (swimming, track and field, cycling, and equestrianism) and 29 distinct events, Natasha Moodie was the youngest member of the delegation (17 years old), while Samantha Albert was the oldest member of the team (37 years old). Gold medalist Veronica Campbell-Brown was the nation's flag bearer at the ceremonies.
Read more about this topic: Jamaica At The 2008 Summer Olympics
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