HOW many Scottish sporting events could regularly attract 30,000 spectators? 

 
The Old Firm derby, a few international football and rugby games, maybe, but not much else. 
In Jamaica, crowds of this size will gather in the national stadium for five days from next Tuesday to watch what is, effectively, a school sports competition. Jamaica's secondary schools' athletics championships is known as Champs, and is the most popular and best-supported athletics event in the country. When author Richard Moore visited the island to witness the competition last year, he described it as the best and most raucous athletics event in the world.
That this tag was bestowed on an event featuring youths between the age of 10 and 19 is incredible, but its status sheds some light as to why Jamaica has emerged as the strongest sprinting nation in the world, with a population of less than three million. Could there be lessons that we in Scotland could learn from this? 
Jamaican runners have dominated world sprinting to a remarkable extent, with the Caribbean island taking gold in the men's 100m, 200m and sprint relay at both the 2008 and the 2012 Olympic Games, and the women winning gold in the 100m in 2008 and both the 100m and 200m in 2012. The country has also produced Usain Bolt.
There has been much discussion as to what exactly has propelled this small island to the forefront of sprinting and the recent spate of positive drugs tests from some of its top athletes did little to silence the critics who suspect that the athletes' rise to the top has been chemically assisted. Five of Jamaica's top athletes have tested positive, including the former 100m world record holder, Asafa Powell. 
To attribute Jamaica's success solely to doping is reductive in the extreme. Yes, some of the country's athletes have been proved to have doped, but in that, Jamaica is no different to any other nation. There must be other reasons that explain, at least in part, how this conveyor belt of world-class sprinters continues to yield physical prototypes.
And this is where Champs comes in. This year sees the 105th staging of the event but its prominence grew dramatically in 1999 when the girls and boys championships merged. Over the five days of competition, hundreds of young athletes from more than 100 schools compete in front of a crowd that is bigger than some major international athletics championships can attract. The event has a sponsorship and marketing deal worth nearly half a million pounds and millions of people all over the world will watch the television coverage.
Champs is where Bolt first came to the attention of the public. As a 16-year-old, he did the 200m/400m double in times that would have been fast enough to qualify for most Olympic finals. Yohan Blake, the former world 100m champion, saw his 100m Champs record broken last year, suggesting that this seemingly endless stream of Jamaican sprinters onto the world scene is likely to continue. This depth in talent is, unquestionably, what allows Jamaica to retain its place at the apex of world sprinting. 
High schools do not have merely a PE teacher as they would in the UK, they do not even just have athletics coaches. Calabar, the winning boys school at the 2014 Champs, has eight coaches specialising in different athletics disciplines. 
Aspiring athletes know that Champs is their opportunity to be talent-spotted and so take their training just as seriously as a senior athlete would. Success in athletics also gives these kids a way out of poverty. Hundreds of thousands of Jamaicans live in squalor, with poor housing, limited food supply, and inadequate access to clean water, quality health care, or education, but athletics success gives them a road out. 
Achieving on the athletics track gives these kids access to kit and facilities that few would have been able to afford otherwise. It is a scenario to which few Scottish youngsters can relate. In this country, kids tend to take part in sport purely for enjoyment, nothing more - does this result in Jamaican children possessing a greater desire to succeed? In some cases, almost certainly.
There is also the undoubted benefit of the experience the young athletes gain at such a fledgling age. To compete in front of 30,000 fans while still a teenager is something few other countries can expose their athletes to. Bolt attributes much of his laid-back attitude and his ability to deal with pressure to Champs, saying: "The Jamaican crowd is one of a kind - if you can perform in front of a Champs crowd, you can perform anywhere." 
Next week's event will be the biggest Champs to date. And it might just announce to the world that Jamaica has produced another bolt of lightning.