Caribbean: Two of the small island nations in the Caribbean named Dominica and Saint Lucia have added into the ranks of Olympic gold medal winners.
The names have been added into the list after two female athletes from each country won the gold medals in the ongoing Paris Olympics 2024.
First athlete was from Dominica- a Nature Isle of the Caribbean with the population of 72,000. Thea Lafond who participated in the women’s 50m Triple Jump won the first ever Gold medal in Olympics 2024.
With the victory, she ended the Olympic medal drought of Dominica and become the first athlete to win medal for the country.
She has garnered immense appreciation for her performance and become the first ever Olympic gold Medalist from Dominica.
In terms of population, Dominica is the smallest country in the world with the Gold Medal.
The second Gold Medalist came from Saint Lucia- a honeymoon destination of the Caribbean with the population of 180,000. Julien Alfred won the first ever medal for the country in the women’s 100m in the ongoing Paris Olympics 2024.
She finished the race in 10.72 seconds and surpassed USA’s Sha’Carri Richardson who ended up with silver medal in the game.
With her victory, Saint Lucia also become the gold medal holder and ended its medal drought in the Olympics.
It is worth mentioning that, there are now more than 100 countries with the Olympic medal in athletics after Burkina Faso joined the ranks. It became the 100th nation in Tokyo three years ago with the bronze medal won by Hugues Fabrice Zango in the triple jump.
Besides this, there are several other Caribbean countries with the Olympic medals including Grenada with population of 125,000. The country added into the list after Kirani James won the Olympic medal in men’s 400m in 2012 Olympics.
Bahamas is also included into the list with seven Olympic gold medals in the sprinting since 2000. Pauline Davis of the Bahamas was the first athlete who will gold medal in men’s 200m in Sydney Olympics in 2000. He was also the winner of the 4×100m relay in the same year.
Tokyo also finished their wait as the Bahamas won two gold medal both in the 400m . The championship was won by Shaunae Miller-Uibo and Steven Gardiner.
Another smallest countries named Luxembourg also won Olympic gold on the track in the 20th century.
