THE word sacrifice kept being echoed in the aftermath of Jamaica’s breakthrough with two throwing medals in the Olympics Games, including the catharsis-like gold and Olympic record 70.00m effort by Roje Stona at Stade de France on August 7.

The feeling that the throwing events in Jamaica have been treated as a distant cousin and not given the attention as the ‘more sexier’ sprints — the foundation of Jamaica’s global dominance over the past few decades — was even more poignant after four of Jamaica’s six medals at the just completed Olympic Games came from off the track.

Two other Jamaicans — Traves Smikle and Ralford Mullings — were in the last week’s discus throw final, the first time the country has had three finalists in a major global throwing event.

Former national representative Nadia Alexander-Pompey, the head track and field coach at Lindenwood University in the United States, said Stona’s gold medal is sweet reward for the struggles field events athletes and coaches have had to endure through the years.

The former Manning’s School and St Hugh’s High athlete, who won the Penn Relays shot put event in 2004, noted that the journey has been long and hard.

“As a thrower coming up in Jamaica, I remember in 2005 being at practice at Kingston College with Mr [Michael] Vassell and just there thinking, ‘You know, all of us as throwers, all we need is more opportunities.’ ”

Back then, she said, there were just a handful of meets that offered throws in the build-up to the Inter-secondary Schools Sports Association Athletics Championships.

“We had to start our season at the Jamaica College (JC) meet. After JC was STETHS [St Elizabeth Technical], then it was Youngster Goldsmith hurdles and field events. Those of us who were lucky to go to CARIFTA Trials, got the CARIFTA Trials, and then Champs.”

In addition to Stona’s magical gold medal in Paris, there was a silver medal for Shanieka Ricketts in the Women’s Triple Jump — another first. And Wayne Pinnock’s silver in the Men’s Long Jump was the first since 1996 when James Beckford was second in Atlanta. There was also a bronze from Rajindra Campbell in the Men’s Shot Put, yet another new frontier for Jamaica.

Alexander-Pompey recalled that Vassell, who is now the throws coach at Excelsior High, started the Big Shot meet, which was Jamaica’s first meet arranged exclusively for throwers.

“He created more track meets, but for something like this to happen it just shows that all the cussing and fighting of Mr Vassell, Orville Byfield, the Leroy Allisons — all the throws coaches that came before the present ones — it was worth it,” she said.

“I remember there were days when a thrower would go to a national championship, win the championship — for example, myself — and be told: ‘You’re not going medal anyway, so there’s no point in carrying you.’ And look at it, this is Olympics 2024 [and] our first and only gold medal right now is in the discus throw. Without those men [coaches] fighting, and cussing, and all those things that they did with the JAAA [Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association] we would have never got to this point,” she reasoned.

Prior to Stona’s record-breaking throw Jamaica had won a World Athletics Under-18 championships discus gold with Fedrick Dacres in 2011; two World Under-20 Championships gold medals with Dacres in 2012 and Kai Chang in 2018; and Traves Smikle had won the first global medal when he took bronze in the Under-18 discus in Italy in 2009.

O’Dayne Richards won bronze in the World Championships shot put in 2015 and a Commonwealth Games gold in 2014, while Danielle Thomas-Dodd also won silver medals in the shot put at the World Championships and World Indoors, as well as the Commonwealth Games title in 2018.

ALEXANDER-POMPEY…without those men [coaches] fighting, and cussing, and all those things that they did with the JAAA [Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association] we would have never got to this point