Jamaica has been recognized the world over as a tiny nation with an embarrassingly rich sporting tradition and history.
One individual who has contributed to that legacy in no uncertain manner is none other than track athlete Arthur Stanley Wint, OD, MBE.
Wint won Jamaica’s first Olympic Games gold medal, when he defeated countryman Herb McKenley in the 400m final at the 1948 London edition, equaling the world record of 46.2 seconds at Jamaica’s first-ever attendance at the Olympics as an independent nation.
Wint later copped a silver medal in the 800m final behind American great Mal Whitfield, as the Jamaicans surprised the world by winning one gold and two silver medals. He pulled a muscle during the 4x400m relays and his and Jamaica’s chances of another medal vanished.
Four years later in Helsinki, Wint formed a formidable partnership with McKenley, Leslie Laing and George Rhoden to win the 4x400m relay gold in record time, while repeating his silver medal achievement behind Whitfield in the 800m for the second-straight Olympics.
More popularly known as the Gentle Giant on the track, the gifted Wint also excelled as a World War II pilot, a surgeon, and a diplomat.
But it is for his exploits as an athlete that the 6’4” runner was best known.
Born May 25, 1920, in Plowden, Manchester, Wint attended Calabar High School where he ran the 400m and 800m races, as well as the high and long jumps.
He later transferred to Excelsior High School to complete his secondary education.
In 1937 Wint was named the Jamaican Boy Athlete of the Year and the following year he won the 800m gold at the Central American and Caribbean Games in Panama.
But his athletics career was put on hold as World War II started in 1939.
He joined the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan in 1942 and was sent to Britain for active combat during World War II as a pilot. Having flown Spitfires alongside two of his brothers during the War, Wint quit the Royal Air Force in 1947 to attend St Bartholomew’s Hospital as a medical student.
He returned to international track in 1948 ahead of Jamaica’s first attendance at the Olympics and retired in 1953, finished his internship and graduated as a doctor.
A year later he was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) by Queen Elizabeth II.
The following year he returned to Jamaica to settle in Hanover as the sole resident doctor in the parish. He was accorded the Jamaican honour of the Order of Distinction (OD) in 1973 and served as High Commissioner to Britain and Ambassador to Sweden and Denmark from 1974 to 1978.
Outside of his Olympic Games exploits, Wint also achieved gold medals at the 1938 Central American and Caribbean Games in Panama, gold in the 400m, 800m and 4x400m relays in Barranquilla, Colombia in 1946.
As fate would have it, Wint died on Heroes Day, October 19, 1992, at age 72 in Linstead, St Catherine.
