How the heck are they so fast? More importantly, does it matter?

The scent of ganja hangs in the air like some Doctor Bird with no place to go. The sun is disappearing behind the grandstand, but the day's stifling heat remains. The fans, clad in their respective team colors, cheer and jeer; the boys taunt and the girls flaunt.

This is the Boys and Girls Championships - the biggest event each year on the Jamaican sporting calendar.

The western Caribbean island is nestled under Cuba and threadbare Haiti - a proximity that allows for the relatively free passage of drugs and guns between the former English and French colonies.

But the only guns and drugs the fans at Kingston's National Stadium are interested in during the early spring meet are the starter's pistol and, for more than a few among the 30,000-strong crowd, the odd spliff or two.

This is Champs, where the old school ties come out and the boys teams from the likes of Kingston College, Calabar, Jamaica College and Wolmer's and the girls squads from St. Elizabeth Tech, Holmwood, Edwin Allen and St. Jago battle it out for bragging rights at the four-day event that provides a school with bragging rights and a nation with a glimpse of its world conquerors to be.

The overwhelming majority - if not all - of the Jamaica team at the coming London Games competed at Champs. The seeds of talent are not planted at the concrete slab called "the Office," which witnessed Jamaica's independence 50 years ago on Aug 6, when the Union Jack was lowered and the green, black and gold flag of Jamaica was raised, but this is where the stars of the future - the Veronica Campbell-Browns, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryces, Usain Bolts and Yohan Blakes - bloomed.

Juliet Cuthbert, who won the 100m and 200m silver medals at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and cut her teeth at the same venue (if not on the same resurfaced track), said Champs was a major reason for Jamaica's track and field success, which dates back to the country's first Olympic appearance and a one-two finish in the 400m in London in 1948 by legends Arthur Wint and Herb McKenley.

"Champs is hugely important to a young athlete's development. It is simply the biggest event of the sporting year here and can get the best into US colleges," Cuthbert said.

Leighton Levy, one of Jamaica's leading track and field experts who ran the sprints at Champs, concurs with the woman who finished behind Gail Devers in the 100m and Gwen Torrence in the 200 at the Games in Spain.

"You have to understand we have a strong primary school tradition, which identifies talent at an early age, and that flows through to the Boys and Girls Athletics Championships," Levy said.

From Champs, the best of the best are chosen to represent Jamaica at regional and world youth and junior events. Bolt, the world's fastest man, dominated the 200 and 400 races at all levels as a novice. Campbell-Brown was also a force, as was Blake.

Not so long ago, Jamaica's best were scouted at Champs and lured to colleges in the United States. But now, due to the emergence of two local-based track clubs (MVP and Racers), they can stay at home and eat, drink, train and party in a familiar environment.

The facilities at Kingston's University of the West Indies and the University of Technology, both a few kilometers east of downtown, may seem rudimentary to outsiders, but the athletes don't appear to mind. Their records speak for themselves.

Bolt, a member of the Racers Track Club, has the world's fastest times in the 100 (9.58 sec) and 200 (19.19) while his stablemate Blake, the world 100m champion after Bolt blew his start in Daegu, South Korea, last year, has the best time in the 100 (9.75) this season and clocked a massive 19.26 in the 200 last year in Brussels.

Meanwhile, MVP's Fraser-Pryce, the defending women's 100 Olympic and world champion, has run the best time over the short sprint and the fourth-fastest ever (10.70) this year. Asafa Powell, also from MVP with a final chance to redeem himself at a major meet, is only just an eyelash behind the "Killer Bs" this season with a best of 9.86.

Of course, the question that always springs to mind is how has a country of about 3 million people won 55 medals (and only one of those outside of track and field - cycling) since joining the Olympic party in 1948?

Two researchers were trying to work that out a few months before I left the land of wood and water three years ago.

They were looking at things like the fast-twitch fiber that makes people's muscles react quicker and the environment in Jamaica. They also studied athletes' heritages and even the yams from the red earth parish of Trelawny - the region from which Bolt and Campbell-Brown hail.

At the end of a long interview that blinded me with science, I asked, "So, any clues yet?"

They looked at each other, smiled and said, "It's like looking for a needle in a haystack".

Maybe some things are simply best left unexplained.

In a Caribbean island where obeah, a religion based on sorcery, is still practiced, is it really necessary to have rational explanations for everything?

On Aug 6, the winner of the men's 100m in London will be awarded his gold medal.

If that green, black and gold standard is raised and the rousing Jamaica Land We Love played, do we really need to delve into the why?

Can't we just let the mystery of brilliance be what it will be and savor the moment of a likkle but tallawah sunburned country that has shone before the world again?

Tym Glaser is a senior sports copy editor who lived in Jamaica for 14 years. He can be contacted at tymglaser@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 07/27/2012 page10)