Overview of Caribbean medal performance at the 2013 IAAF World Championships in , Russia

Peter B. Jordens Curaçao, August 22, 2013

Introduction

The 14th World Championships of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) were held in Moscow, Russia, from August 10 to 18, 2013. The present overview summarizes the performance of the Caribbean nations that won medals at IAAF 2013.

The overview takes into account both the absolute medal count of a country and the medal count per capita (i.e. the medal count per population size of the country in question). The main sources used for this overview are http://www.iaaf.org/competitions/iaaf-world- championships and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_World_Championships_in_Athletics.

Medal count as a region

As a region the Caribbean won 15 medals of which 8 were gold, 3 silver and 4 bronze. These medals were won by five of the Caribbean nations present in Moscow: (9), Cuba (3), Colombia (1), (1) and the Dominican Republic (1).

G S B TOT WT Jamaica 6 2 1 9 7.25 G = gold medals Colombia 1 0 0 1 1.00 S = silver medals Trinidad and Tobago 1 0 0 1 1.00 B = bronze medals Cuba 0 1 2 3 1.00 TOT = total medals Dominican Republic 0 0 1 1 0.25 WT = weighted total TOTAL 8 3 4 15 10.50 POP = population size

The 15 Caribbean medals represented 11% of the total of 142 medals that could be won at IAAF 2013. This is a relatively high medal count, bearing in mind that the total population of the five Caribbean countries that won medals in Moscow constituted only 2.3% of the total population of all the 38 countries (worldwide) that won medals in Moscow.

The individual medal winners

Names, medals, events

Jamaica: 6 gold 2 silver 1 bronze Gold Men’s 100m Gold Men’s 200m Usain Bolt Gold Women’s 100m Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce Gold Women’s 200m Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce Gold Men’s 4x100m relay , Kemar Bailey-Cole, , Usain Bolt Gold Women’s 4x100m Carrie Russell, , Schillonie Calvert, Shelly-Ann relay Fraser-Pryce

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Silver Men’s 4x400m relay Rusheen McDonald, Javere Bell, Edino Steele, Javon Francis Silver Men’s 200m Bronze Men’s 100m Nesta Carter

Colombia: 1 gold Gold Women’s triple jump Caterine Ibargüen

Trinidad and Tobago: 1 gold Gold Men’s 400 m hurdles Jehue Gordon

Cuba: 1 silver 2 bronze Silver Men’s triple jump Pedro Pablo Pichardo Bronze Women’s discus throw Yarelys Barrios Bronze Women’s pole vault Yarisley Silva

Dominican Republic: 1 bronze Bronze Men’s 400m Luguelín Santos

Outstanding feats

Jamaica’s Usain Bolt and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce were the two most successful athletes of IAAF 2013, both winning three gold medals: in the 100m and 200m and the 4×100m team relay sprint.

This achievement also earned Bolt the title of being the most successful athlete in the history of the World Championships with eight gold and two silver medals, surpassing ’ 8 golds, 1 silver and 1 bronze.

Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce’s achievement meant that she became the first woman in World Championship history to sweep the three sprint events. Fraser-Pryce said she hoped her historic performance would do more for the image of women’s sprinting: “Women’s sprinting is something the sport should appreciate more. I’m glad women’s sprinting is taking the course it is.”

Caterine Ibargüen won Colombia’s first ever World Championship gold by finishing first in the triple jump.

Trinidad and Tobago’s Jehue Gordon won the 400m hurdles, giving his country its first gold medal since 1997.

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Country rankings

The IAAF ranks the medal-winning countries according to the number of gold medals won. This way of ranking privileges the larger countries: host country Russia comes out on top and the USA takes second place. Here is the top 7:

G S B TOT WT 1 Russia 7 4 6 17 10.50 2 USA 6 14 5 25 14.25 3 Jamaica 6 2 1 9 7.25 4 Kenya 5 4 3 12 7.75 5 Germany 4 2 1 7 5.25 6 Ethiopia 3 3 4 10 5.50 7 Great Britain & N.I. 3 0 3 6 3.75

If the countries are ranked by gold medal count per capita, a very different picture emerges with Jamaica placing first and Trinidad and Tobago second!

POP G S B TOT WT G/POP 1 Jamaica 2,711,476 6 2 1 9 7.25 2.2128 2 Trinidad and Tobago 1,328,019 1 0 0 1 1.00 0.7530 3 Croatia 4,290,612 1 0 0 1 1.00 0.2331 4 New Zealand 4,472,950 1 0 0 1 1.00 0.2236 5 Ireland 4,585,400 1 0 0 1 1.00 0.2181 6 10,512,800 2 0 1 3 2.25 0.1902 7 Kenya 44,354,000 5 4 3 12 7.75 0.1127

On this list, Russia ranks 10th and the USA 17th.

Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago also take first and second place when the countries participating at IAAF 2013 are ranked by weighted total medal count per capita:

POP G S B TOT WT WT/POP 1 Jamaica 2,711,476 6 2 1 9 7.25 2.6738 2 Trinidad and Tobago 1,328,019 1 0 0 1 1.00 0.7530 3 Djibouti 864,618 0 0 1 1 0.25 0.2891 4 Qatar 1,916,426 0 1 0 1 0.50 0.2609 5 Botswana 2,024,904 0 1 0 1 0.50 0.2469 6 Croatia 4,290,612 1 0 0 1 1.00 0.2331 7 New Zealand 4,472,950 1 0 0 1 1.00 0.2236

One Caribbean country that certainly left Moscow disappointed was : for the first time since 1993, they did not win a World Championship medal. Their only consolation was that the men’s 4x100m relay sprint team set a new national record.

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