Ah it a run di place now. Yeah man, thanks to things like TV and Internet, whether you live in a village in Vanuatu, the forests of Venezuela or a cabin in Callaloo Mews, you can log on, click on or turn on and enjoy a sense of almost 'being in Beijing'. Trust me, I'm really having fun and learning much as I watch television coverage of the Olympic Games. The mind boggling displays and dazzling spectacle of the opening ceremony aside, just to observe the daily variety of activities and confluence of colours is exciting and entertaining.

Existence of countries

What a thing nice man? What a whole heap of events? And so many new countries! I'm not ashamed to admit that if it weren't for the Games, I probably wouldn't know about the existence of countries like Marshal Islands, Montenegro and Tuvalu. These are three countries making their first appearance at the Games. Of course, I didn't know anything about Saar and Kiribati either; and they have been to the Olympics before. Maybe I'm just paying more attention to this time around.

Infectious Olympic fever

The Olympic fever is really so infectious though, that one can't help being afflicted by it. I didn't know that I could spend time watching things like fencing, weightlifting, synchronised diving, archery and equestrian events. But mi busy a dweet! I've been watching gymnastics, tennis, handball, volleyball, beach volleyball, swimming and water polo. Like most Jamaicans though, I'm only watching all of this because the running don't start yet. You too? All of us are just really biding time because we can hardly wait to see our fellow Jamaicans kick up dust pon some foreign athletes in the track and field events. That's when the fever going to reach the point where it might send some people insane when their predictions and expectations fail to materialise.

Dominant force in the sprints

Some of that is bound to happen, and there will be many surprises. Still, this little piece of rock will again emerge as a dominant force in the sprints.

But we should be dominating other areas like swimming too. After all, no matter where you are in Jamaica you are never more than 25 miles away from water. And most of us can't swim; that weird eeh? Yet we have no snow and we have bob sled team. We should also be into the rifling and other shooting events because many of our young men aspire to be shottas. You ever watch how some young Jamaican males gesticulate? It's as if some of them were born with their right index fingers wrapped around the trigger of a gun. If we harness their interest and abilities we could be manufacturing Olympic-gold-medal-winning shottas. What yu think?

As I've said in this column before, Jamaica should really invest in the equipment, personnel and other resources needed to facilitate our participation in other Olympic events, especially because we seem to have natural talents in certain areas. For example, with our ability to fling bottle and big stone and stick, we should have a strong team of javelin, discus and shot-put throwers at the games. And how come we don't have more jumpers? Who can jump fence, scale wall and beat gate like we? We should try and transform these skills into competitive and productive endeavours. Wha yu say? Am I unto something here, or have I just acquired an acute case of Olympic fever?