The national sport in Jamaica is cricket, and all around the island, you hear the thwack of leather on willow, as the local boys practise their skills in fields in the hope of being the next Courtney Walsh, while men gather in tea shops and bars to debate the current state of the West Indies test side.
Many young Jamaicans see sport as the best way out of the poverty that afflicts the island, and become athletes in the USA while attending college. Notable exports to the world of sport include Merlene Ottey, one of the most successful woman sprinters in history. Famously, in the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, the island entered a bobsleigh team, despite never having had any snow.
